Shards IV

1978–2005

A studio in the former auction house in the East Village

From 1978 to 2005 he owns the Van Tassell and Kearney Horse Auction Mart building in Manhattan's East Village and uses it as his studio; nearly thirty years of care lead to the restoration of the facade, and after a six-year campaign by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation the building is designated a New York City Landmark in 2012.

1980s

Takes up squash

Takes up squash after injuring his back opening a garage door; later has a court built at his horse farm in upstate New York and forms close friendships with many players. In 1986 he says squash lets him forget about painting.

1982

Exhibition at the Addison Gallery, Phillips Academy

Large-scale works by Stella are shown at the Addison Gallery at Phillips Academy; the critic Kenneth Baker, reviewing the exhibition, finds the physical impact of the recent works unsettling and their designs not interesting enough to contemplate.

1984

The Norton Lectures at Harvard

Harvard University invites him to give the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures; in six talks Stella calls for a rejuvenation of abstraction through the depth of baroque painting.