In 1963, the famous New York painter Frank Stella traveled across Iran, seeking out the great monuments of Iran’s past along with curator Henry Geldzahler and art collectors Stanley and Shirley Woodward. Drawing on previously undiscovered documents from their trip, Dr. Sarah-Neel Smith, Assistant Professor of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the Maryland Institute College of Art, investigates how Stella’s encounter with Iranian Islamic architecture impacted his abstract painting.

Image: West iwan of the Great Mosque of Isfahan (detail), 1962 (Wikimedia Commons)