WEEKLY Dose of Art

Frank Stella died in May 2024 at age 87. He was one of the most important American artists of the 20th century, the kind of name every art history textbook includes and every serious collector knows. 

But right now, two years after his death, something nobody expected just came out.

He had been secretly collecting Navajo textiles for over 40 years. He got fifty-five of them. Covering the walls and floors of his apartment.

Artist spotlight of the week

Okay, but first, who even was Frank Stella

In 1959, Frank Stella was just a 23-year-old kid from Princeton who barely anybody in New York cared about. One day, he walked into MoMA’s famous Sixteen Americans show with paintings that were basically just black stripes.

At the time, the art world was obsessed with painters like Jackson Pollock, who made huge, chaotic paintings of Abstract Expressionism.

Meaning: stop trying to find some deep, hidden meaning.

And weirdly, people loved it.

Then he discovered Navajo weaving

In the mid-1960s, Frank Stella’s career was taking off. Around that time, his friend Donald Judd introduced him to a Los Angeles artist named Tony Berlant, who had become obsessed with collecting Navajo blankets.

Stella walked into Berlant’s place, saw the textiles, and instantly connected with them. 

These were the same ideas Stella and other minimalist artists were exploring in modern art. Except that Diné weavers had already been doing it for generations, long before anyone started using terms like “minimalism” or “op art.”

Stella ended up trading one of his own artworks for a blanket right there on the spot.

And then he just kept collecting.

By the time he died, his apartment in the West Village, designed by architect Richard Meier, was filled with them.

• 55 Navajo textiles covering walls and layered across floors

• Hung alongside his own paintings and pieces by Jasper Johns and other artist friends

The Diné Women Who Were Decades Ahead of the Art World

And honestly, the most fascinating part might be the weavers themselves.

The Navajo people call themselves Diné. And in Diné culture, weaving has traditionally been done by women for centuries.

There’s even a sacred origin story around it.

Around that time (1800-1900), new synthetic dyes started arriving from factories in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Suddenly, Diné weavers had access to colors that barely existed in the Southwest before: bright reds, electric yellows, deep blues.

And they created completely crazy, colourful blankets with them.

In 1972, Tony Berlant organized an exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art that included one of Stella’s textiles. It was one of the first times Navajo weaving was presented as fine art instead of anthropology.

It took museums until the 1970s to understand that it's not a cultural object but a masterpiece.

What's happening right now

The exhibition is happening at Arader Galleries through June 10, before moving to Peter Pap Rugs in July.

And yes, the pieces are actually for sale.

Prices range from around $6,500 to $25,000.

But honestly, the interesting part isn’t the market value. It’s seeing the textiles next to Stella’s own drawings from the 1960s, made around the exact same time he started collecting them.

You can immediately see the connection.

The same geometry, same patterns, same visual rhythm.

It almost feels less like “influence” and more like two artists speaking the same language across different centuries.

The dealer behind the show, Peter Pap, described Stella’s collection as deeply personal.

The Diné women had no idea their work would one day hang inside a Manhattan apartment next to paintings by Jasper Johns.

But somehow, they fit perfectly together.

This Week in Art