You could tell a story with the shapes. It wouldn’t be a literal story, but the shapes and the interaction of the shapes and colors would give you a narrative sense. You could have a sense of an abstract piece flowing along and being part of an action or activity. That sort of turned me on.
Once restricted to the closed geometry that came to define Frank Stella’s early work, or as William Rubin describes, his so-called “first” career, Eskimo Curlew and the other compositions of Stella’s Exotic Birds represent the moment he broke free from the inflexible, predetermined restraints of the rectangle. Though still organized using grid paper, these compositions embrace formal freedom and improvisation in ways previously absent from his earlier, more rigidly constrained canvases. The Exotic birds were the start of Stella’s “second career.” An apparent formal departure from his earlier work, the Exotic Birds feature a similar industrial visual language, with their curvilinear lines and shapes borrowed from the drafting templates used to design boats, and their alignment being organized by Stella on grid paper. The curved forms are then given biomorphic qualities through Stella’s naming of the compositions after endangered birds. The Eskimo Curlew, a shore-dwelling Alaskan bird which tragically has not been seen since 1962 and is possibly extinct, seems to share a striking resemblance to Eskimo Curlew’s curved bodies. Whether this apparent likeness is real or simply perceived due to the painting’s name raises significant questions surrounding how titles affect the perception of a work of art.
One of the final compositions in the Exotic Birds Series, Eskimo Curlew, painted in 1980, introduces a novel medium, combining acrylic, paint stick, and mixed media on Tycore board, making them unique from the initial prints and maquettes of the project. The highly sought-after Tycore works mark a crucial transition towards the free forms that define Stella’s exceptional later practice.
