Of course, innovation is not in itself a value or a virtue. It might be properly gathered with “novelty,” a characteristic of much contemporary art. But creative invention to expand the range of art’s power is important, and is a central aspect to understanding Stella’s oeuvre. However, this is easier said than done. Indeed, it is a telling measure of the richness of Stella’s work that the best writings about it have been highly focused, from early texts on paintings by Robert Rosenblum and Michael Fried, and William Rubin’s two catalogue discussions of paintings and then constructions, to recent considerations of sculpture by Bonnie Clearwater and of architectural designs by Paul Goldberger. Stella’s post-1970s drawings and his maquettes, along with his printmaking, are still only summarized (except for Robert Hughes on the “Swan Engravings”) and, more to the point, the very contrapuntal connections among these different works have yet to be explored.

Even if we define them as “episodic” in focus, three concurrent exhibitions of Stella’s art in New York last summer provided a rare occasion to gain a wider appreciation. And the range shown was also informative, from smaller-scale wall con-structions shown at Paul Kasmin Gallery to two exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: “Frank Stella on the Roof” showed his recent large-scale sculpture on the museum’s roof, while “Frank Stella: Painting into Architecture” presented his architectural designs. In this second exhibition, curator Gary Tinterow included comparative works in other media by the artist—a virtually unique presentation of Stella’s wider work.

While the Kasmin exhibition’s selection presents an abstract combination of quite various elements, the sculptures’ roots lie in 18th-century European and English still-life relief modelings and carvings as well as in Cubist compositions by Jacques Lipchitz and Henri Laurens. For example, the resolution of “K-79” (2006) rests in its long, looping tube passing into and around a center, weighted core-composed of a heavy relief element in the upper area, countered by an open form embracing the tube at the lower right; the center element of “carved out” planes derives from a flatsheet push-out hat Stella found on a Rio beach. Most importantly, the works shown at Kasmin provided a lesson on scale in Stella’s art—where proportion is real, the pieces have no sense of being “studies” for enlargement. While this is perhaps a given in Stella’s large-size works, this “scale realism” has been true since his pioneering sculpture show at Knoedler in 1992.

At the other end of the physical scale, we find Stella’s architectural designs, as shown in models at the Metropolitan, including one project (unrealized) of particular note: The Chapel of the Holy Ghost. At first viewing, this design seems to be casual, even overly “sculptural,” consisting of only three basic, though functional, components: a cone form as the sanctuary with an open-air “nave” and crowning above; two open-band “swirls” (from the same concept used later in “K-79”), which also extend the flat aluminum gray bands of “Union Pacific” (1970) and his grand double square diptych, “Le Réve de d’Alembert” (1974).