Description:

THEODOROS STAMOS (GREEK-AMERICAN 1922-1997)
Infinity Field, Jerusalem Series, circa 1984-1985
acrylic on canvas
183 x 168 cm (72 x 66 1/8 in.)
framed dimensions: 188 x 174 cm (74 x 68 1/2 in.)

PROVENANCE
Acquired from Dorsky Galleries, New York by the current owner
Private Collection, Ridgefield, Connecticut

LOT NOTES
A central figure of the first-generation New York School, Theodoros Stamos was the youngest member of "The Irascibles," the elite group of Abstract Expressionists that included Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, and Willem de Kooning. Born in New York to Greek immigrant parents, Stamos’s work was deeply informed by a "biomorphic" sensibility, seeking to bridge the gap between the primordial natural world and the internal spiritual landscape. His career was marked by a profound mastery of light and color, evolving from the dense, organic forms of the 1940s to the expansive, meditative canvases of his later years. Despite the professional controversies that shadowed his later career following the Rothko estate trial, Stamos remained a relentless innovator, eventually retiring to the Greek island of Lefkada, where the brilliant Mediterranean light became his final and most enduring muse.

The Infinity Field series, which occupied Stamos from 1970 until his death in 1997, represents the artist’s ultimate distillation of the "Color Field" movement. These works are characterized by vast, atmospheric spans of color punctuated by thin, vibrating lines or "crevices" that suggest an immense, boundless space. Within this broader series, the Jerusalem Series stands out as a particularly evocative sub-group. Inspired by his travels to the Holy Land in the late 1960s and early 1970s, these paintings move away from pure geometry toward a more "geologic" and spiritual abstraction. In these works, Stamos sought to capture what he called the "ancient light" - the sun-bleached textures of limestone walls and the profound historical weight of the Levant - rendering them as shimmering, layered veils of pigment.

In the present work, a monumental example of the Infinity Field, Jerusalem Series from the mid-1980s, Stamos employs a sophisticated palette of deep violets and cool, stone-like blues. The towering scale of the canvas - standing 72 inches tall - invites the viewer to lose themselves in the "agitated" textures and soft, bled edges that define his mature style. The vertical crevice that anchors the composition serves as a focal point of tension, suggesting a tear in the fabric of the color field through which a hidden light emerges. This painting exemplifies Stamos’s late-career ability to translate physical geography into a transcendental visual language, solidifying his legacy as one of the most significant and poetic voices in 20th-century American abstraction.

Keywords: First-Generation Abstract Expressionist, Irascibles, New York School, Infinity Field Series, Color Field Painting

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