Chocorua IV
Frank Stella, American, 1936 - 2024
1966
Fluorescent alkyd and epoxy painting on shaped canvas
Overall: 120 × 128 × 4 in. (304.8 × 325.1 × 10.2 cm)
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Purchased through the Miriam H. and S. Sidney Stoneman Acquisition Fund, a gift from Judson and Carol Bemis, Class of 1976, and gifts from the Lathrop Fellows, in honor of Brian P. Kennedy, Director of the Hood Museum of Art, 2005-2010
© Frank Stella / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
2010.50
Geography
Place Made: United States, North America
Period
20th century
Object Name
Painting
Research Area
Painting
On view
Label
All I want anyone to get out of my paintings, and all I ever get out of them, is the fact that you can see the whole idea without any confusion . . . What you see is what you see. -- Frank Stella
The final version of four works that share the title Chocorua, this example displays Stella’s goal for his paintings to be about themselves and nothing further. While the title refers to an actual New Hampshire mountain, it came about largely because he had fond memories of traveling there as a child. He acknowledged that these works from his Irregular Polygon series (1965–66) might feel landscape-like but remained steadfast in his interpretation of his work as objects with color that defy narrative interpretation.
From the 2025 exhibition Always Already: Abstraction in the United States, curated by John Stomberg, Virginia Rice Kelsey 1961 Director; Jami Powell, Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs and Curator of Indigenous Art; and Amelia Kahl, Barbara C. and Harvey P. Hood 1918 Senior Curator of Academic Programing
Course History
WRIT 5, Expository Writing, William Craig, Winter 2014
Exhibition History
Always Already: Abstraction in the United States, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, April 26,2025.
Frank Stella, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York, October 30, 2015-March 7, 2016; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, Texas, April 15, 2016-September 4, 2016; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, California, November 5-February 26, 2017.
Frank Stella: Irregular Polygons, Churchill P. Lathrop Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire; October 9, 2010-March 13, 2011; The Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio, April 8-July 24, 2011.
In Residence: Contemporary Art at Dartmouth, Churchill P. Lathrop Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 18-July 6, 2014.
Publication History
Brian P. Kennedy, Frank Stella, Irregular Polygons, 1965-66, Hanover, New Hampshire: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2010, pp. 12-13, ill. p. 13.
Michael R. Taylor and Gerald Auten, In Residence: Contemporary Artists at Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2013, ill. p. 47 , no. 30
Michael Auping, Frank Stella: A Retrospective, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2015, 238 pp,. color ill. checklist # 31.
John R. Stomberg, The Hood Now: Art and Inquiry at Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2019, p. 174, ill. plate no. 105.
Provenance
The artist; sold to present collection, 2010.
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