Empress of India

The Museum of Modern Art New York, the USA.

Canvas, metal powder in a polymer emulsion.

“Empress of India” is one of the first figurative and non-figurative paintings of Stella, which has a form that is non-standard for painting. The work consists of four triangles connected in series, each of which differs from the neighboring by colour scheme. Like in his earlier works, the artist painted parallel stripes on the canvas, leaving sections of the unpainted base between them. In a series of so-called “copper” works, the artist used metal powder, which gives the surface an unusual colour and texture.