FRANK STELLA (B. 1936) The Whale as a Dish

Silkscreen, litograph, colour linocut, marbled, hand-coloured, collage on paper Edition 58/60 171 x 139 Executed in 1989 This image takes its title from the 65th chapter of Moby Dick, where Ahab, perhaps recognising that it was no longer common practice, discusses why eating whale meat is morally no different than eating any other type of animal. In this work chaos appears to be mostly (but not entirely) contained in a central circle, with a bright yellow background. A lattice pattern is still detectable in the white lines within the circle, from which an almost tail-like shape seems to have escaped.