Between 1908 and 1924, Stella completed several commissions for the magazine The Survey, including a pictorial essay of six illustrations for an issue titled "Giant Power" (March 1, 1924). For this project, Stella visited a coal processing plant in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and portrayed the successive stages in the creation of coal byproducts. Here, in a shallow pictorial space, Stella depicts the imposing silhouette of a mountain of coal, drawn in appropriately dense black charcoal, and the comparatively delicate steelwork conveyor that straddles it. The forms are simplified but monumental, implying the power of industry, yet the shadowy atmosphere hints at a sinister, oppressive underside to that power.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Bituminous Coal Storage Pile
Artist:Joseph Stella (American (born Italy) Muro Lucano 1877–1946 New York, New York)
Date:ca. 1920
Medium:Charcoal on paper
Dimensions:20 × 26 in. (50.8 × 66 cm)
Classification:Drawings
Credit Line:The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1950
Accession Number:50.31.4
Inscription: Signed (top right): Joseph Stella
the artist, New York (until d. 1946); his nephew, Sergio Stella, Bayside, N. Y. (1946–50; sold on February 6, 1950 to Downtown Gallery); [Downtown Gallery, New York, 1950; sold on February 20, 1950 to MMA]
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "20th Century Painters: A Special Exhibition of Oils, Water Colors and Drawings Selected from the Collections of American Art in the Metropolitan Museum," June 16–October 29, 1950, unnum. brochure (p. 16; as "Coal Pile").
Fort Worth, Tex. Fort Worth Public Library. February 5–28, 1952, no catalogue.
Museum of Modern Art, New York. "The Drawings of Joseph Stella," October 26–November 13, 1960, no catalogue (checklist no. 5; as "Coal Pile," ca. 1902).
Washington, D. C. Corcoran Gallery of Art. "The New Tradition: Modern Americans Before 1940," April 27–June 2, 1963, no. 96 (as "Coal Pile," ca. 1902).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Three Centuries of American Painting," April 9–October 17, 1965, unnum. checklist (as "Coal Pile").
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "American Paintings, Drawings and Watercolors from the Museum's Collections," October 1–December 7, 1969, no catalogue.
Pittsburgh. Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute. "Forerunners of American Abstraction," November 18, 1971–January 9, 1972, no. 99.
Staten Island Museum. "20th Century American Paintings from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," April 9–28, 1978, brochure no. 15 (as "Coal Pile").
Berlin. Akademie der Künste. "Amerika: Traum und Depression 1920/40," November 9–December 28, 1980, no. 330.
Kunstverein Hamburg. "Amerika: Traum und Depression 1920/40," January 11–February 15, 1981, no. 330.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "American Landscape Painting," April 4–August 13, 1989, no catalogue.
Fort Worth. Amon Carter Museum of American Art. "Visual Poetry: The Drawings of Joseph Stella," February 23–April 22, 1990.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. "Visual Poetry: The Drawings of Joseph Stella," May 19–July 22, 1990.
Washington, D.C. National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. "Visual Poetry: The Drawings of Joseph Stella," September 7–November 12, 1990.
New York. Whitney Museum of American Art. "Joseph Stella," April 22–October 9, 1994, unnumbered cat. (fig. 131; as "Bituminous Coal Storage Piles").
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "American Drawings (1900–1950): Selections from the Permanent Collection," October 25, 2005–April 23, 2006, no catalogue.
"The Coal By-Product Oven: Drawings by Joseph Stella." Survey 51 (March 1, 1924), ill. p. 564, as "Bituminous Coal Storage Piles".
Robert Beverly Hale. 100 American Painters of the 20th Century: Works Selected from the Collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1950, ill. p. 42, calls it "Coal Pile" and dates it about 1902.
Nedra Jenkins. "Art Group's Exhibit Shows Work of American Life." Fort Worth Star-Telegram (February 4, 1952), p. 8, calls it "Coal Pile" and dates it early 1900s.
John Canaday. "New Talent Fifty Years Ago." Art in America 47 (Spring 1959), ill. p. 29, calls it "Coal Pile".
Henry Geldzahler. American Painting in the Twentieth Century. New York, 1965, p. 68, ill.
Irma B. Jaffe. Joseph Stella. Cambridge, Mass., 1970, pp. 60–61, 185, fig. 62, calls it "Bituminous Coal Piles" in text and "Coal Pile" in caption.
Marshall B. Davidson. The American Heritage History of the Artists' America. New York, 1973, p. 290, ill., calls it "Coal Pile" and dates it about 1902.
Barbara Haskell. Joseph Stella. Exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art. New York, 1994, pp. 107, 196 n. 11, pp. 268, 272, fig. 131, dates it about 1918–24.
Ellen E. Roberts inJoseph Stella: Visionary Nature. Exh. cat., Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Fla. Atlanta, 2022, p. 35, fig. 1 (color).
Joseph Stella (American (born Italy) Muro Lucano 1877–1946 New York, New York)
ca. 1921–26
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