Frank Stella Then Came a Dog and Bit the Cat, 1984 is the fourth installment in the artist’s Illustrations After El Lissitsky’s Had Gadya Series. This work recalls the post-painterly abstraction known to have influenced Stella with added elements that reflect collage and cut-out effects. Inspired after seeing an exhibition in 1919 by the Russian avant-garde artist El Lissitzky who had created a series of gouaches illustrating the traditional Jewish Passover song, Had Gadya (The Only Kid), Stella created this series. This work is composed of several forms rendered in white and purple hues that are reminiscent of his Cones and Pillars paintings at the top of the composition along with other forms with a hand-drawn quality along the bottom. The entire work is surrounded by a field of crimson red which is enticing to the viewer.

Created in 1990, this hand-coloring and collage with lithograph, linocut and silkscreen on T.H. Saunders paper and shaped, hand-cut Somerset paper is hand-signed by Frank Stella (Massachusetts, 1936 - ) in pencil in the lower center image and numbered from the edition of 60 in pencil in the lower center image.

Catalogue Raisonné & COA:

Frank Stella Then Came a Dog and Bit the Cat, from Illustrations after El Lissitzky’s Had Gadya, 1984  is fully documented and referenced in the below catalogue raisonnés and texts (copies will be enclosed as added documentation with the invoices that will accompany the sale of the work).

1. Axsom, Richard. The Prints of Frank Stella: A Catalogue Raisonné 1967–1984. Hudson Hills Press: New York, 1983. Listed and illustrated as catalogue raisonné no. 173 on pg. 274.
2. A Certificate of Authenticity will accompany this artwork.

About the Framing:

Framed to museum-grade, conservation standards, Frank Stella Then Came a Dog and Bit the Cat, from Illustrations after El Lissitzky’s Had Gadya, 1984 is presented in a complementary moulding and finished with silk-wrapped mats and optical grade Plexiglas.