Frank Stella Value: Top Prices Paid at Auction

Point Of Pines (1959) set Frank Stella's current auction record when it sold at Christie's New York in May 2019. This monumental painting represents Stella's breakthrough Black Paintings series that launched his career when he was just 23 years old. Despite its geometric precision, Stella painted these bands freehand without measuring tools or masking tape, relying solely on the steady hand he developed while working as a commercial house painter. The revolutionary Minimalist approach, with its emphasis on the materiality of the painting rather than illusionistic depth, caught the eye of influential MoMA curator Dorothy Miller, who included the young artist in the landmark Sixteen Americans exhibition alongside Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. When sold in 2019, the painting doubled Stella's previous auction record, cementing its importance in his catalogue and the contemporary art market.

Honduras Lottery Co. (1962), a standout example from Stella's celebrated Benjamin Moore series, reached this impressive figure at Sotheby's New York in November 2023, confirming its status as a key work from his early art career. The series - named for the commercial paint manufacturer whose products Stella selected for their intense, flat colours - marks an essential developmental phase, connecting the austere monochromatic approach of his Black Paintings with the more colourfully adventurous works that followed. With its concentric square configuration executed in bold primary hues, the canvas reveals Stella's deepening exploration of chromatic relationships and formal structure. The painting attracted exceptional bidder interest partly due to its impeccable condition and distinguished exhibition history, having appeared in major presentations at both MoMA and the Whitney Museum.

Achieving this impressive result at Sotheby's in May 2024, just a week after the artist’s death, Ifafa I (1964) represents one of the most recent sales on this list, underscoring the continued strength of Stella's market. This mixed media work, which incorporates polymer emulsion and metallic powder, exemplifies Stella's evolving approach to form and materiality during this pivotal period of artistic exploration. The work's title references a river in South Africa, in line with Stella's practice of giving his abstract works geographically or historically significant names. At nearly two metres wide, the ambitious scale, distinctive tesselating V-shaped design, and subtle tonal variation demonstrate Stella's growing interest in the interplay between geometric shapes and spatial perception. Critics have noted how pieces from this period mark Stella's transition from pure Minimalism toward the more complex, three-dimensional works that would define his later career.

Jungji-Kowwa (1978), a mixed media sculpture, sold at Sotheby's New York in November 1988, making it the earliest sale on this list and a record sale that held for 27 years. This sale is particularly significant as it represents Stella's pivotal transition into three-dimensional work. The sculpture and its nebulous form and spontaneous paint application marks what Whitney Museum director Adam D. Weinberg called Stella's position as "a radical innovator who has, from the beginning, absorbed the lessons of art history and then remade the world on his own artistic terms." Stella was blurring the boundaries of his chosen mediums, introducing unconventionally industrial materials, such as aluminium and wire mesh, all while deriving his inspiration from music and literature. The work's continued importance in Stella's oeuvre is reflected in its inclusion in major retrospectives, including the landmark 2015 Whitney Museum exhibition.

Sharpeville (1962) achieved this result at Christie's New York in July 2020. This vast greyscale painting (measuring over 2 square metres) belongs to an elite group of five large concentric square works from this period, with three others housed in major museums, including the Senzon Museum (Tokyo), Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), and Hirshhorn Museum (Washington). The title references the devastating 1960 Sharpeville massacre when South African police killed 69 Black protesters, including dozens of children. The stark contrasts within the monochrome palette visually echo the divisive atmosphere of apartheid South Africa, demonstrating how Stella's seemingly pure abstraction often contained subtle, but significant, commentary. Stella’s other work Cato & Manor (1973) references a similar tragedy in Durban, the effects of which were said to have influenced the events of the Sharpville massacre.

Delaware Crossing (1961) sold out of the A.A. Taubman Collection at Sotheby's New York in November 2015 - another poignant title, this time referencing a pivotal American Revolutionary War event. It was created during Stella's early mature period after graduating from Princeton with a degree in history, and is another example from his Benjamin Moore series. The painting demonstrates Stella's exploration of directional line patterns, creating a dynamic cross/star formation in vibrant red. Unlike many precision-oriented Minimalists, Stella never used masking tape for these stripe paintings, instead relying on his spatial intuition - as such, small imperfections can be appreciated up close. This result held Stella's auction record price for nearly four years, until Point Of Pines (1959) set the current record in 2019, demonstrating its exceptional market significance.

Pratfall (1974) sold at Sotheby's New York in November 2016, achieving almost double its high estimate. This large acrylic painting (over 3 square metres) represents Stella's capacity for reinvention; unlike similar monochromatic works from this time, which were titled after harrowing world events, this piece has a playful title that alludes to Stella’s growing interest in visual humor and perception games. Michael Auping, chief curator at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, described it as "a simple 1974 painting that depicts a number of squares to make the viewer feel as if they are falling down a hole" - the viewer, in this sense, is the ‘prat.’ The work was prominently featured in the landmark Whitney Museum retrospective, Frank Stella: A Retrospective, which celebrated his ability to continually transform his practice across six decades.

A literal visual pun and the companion piece to Pratfall (1974), Sight Gag (1974) achieved this result at Sotheby's New York in November 2018, two years after the significant sale of its counterpart. The work was included in a major international exhibition tour that included MoMA, Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), Centre Pompidou (Paris), Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), and several other prestigious institutions, alongside other works such as Sharpeville (1962). Throughout this period of his career, Stella maintained his famous dictum: "What you see is what you see," rejecting symbolic interpretation and emotional narratives in abstract art, while still creating works of striking visual rhythm, spatial depth, and conceptual complexity.

A complete set of Stella’s Benjamin Moore series (1961) miniatures sold at Christie's New York in October 2020, five years after the full-sized Delaware Crossing (1961) sold for £7.8 million. The name of this series is far from arbitrary, originating with the Benjamin Moore & Co. alkyd paints that are used in the paintings themselves. Stella's father worked as a house painter before becoming a gynecologist, and Frank himself took house painting jobs to support himself after moving to New York. This connection of commerce and branding with fine art aligned Stella’s work with Pop Art - something that caught the eye of Andy Warhol in 1961, when he purchased a full set of miniatures for his own collection. The titles in this series carry significant historical weight, with Hampton Roads (1961) referencing the historic 1862 naval confrontation featuring the first-ever duel between ironclad warships - the Monitor and Merrimack.

Untitled (1968) achieved this result at Sotheby's New York in October 2020. This concentric square composition in muted greys represents Stella at a pivotal point just before receiving his retrospective at MoMA. At just 33, he was the youngest artist ever to receive such an honor at this prestigious institution - a record that still stands. Despite being considered a progenitor of Minimalism, Stella’s gestural hand remains visible in these hand-painted concentric squares, with almost imperceptible curves and overhangs in the corners of the finer squares. This painting exemplifies what critic Michael Fried praised in Stella's work - forms that structured images "deductively, internally, with no need for 'found' images." This principle would carry through Stella's entire career, even as his work became increasingly complex in later decades.