Infinity Field– Lefkada Series, 1980
acrylic on paper
77 × 57 cm

Provenance
Turske Fine Art KAG, Zurich
Private collection, Germany
VAN HAM, Cologne
Private collection, Greece

Infinity Field– Lefkada Series, 1980
acrylic on paper
77 × 57 cm

Provenance
Ericson Gallery, Manhattan
Private collection
Private collection, Greece

Infinity Field– Lefkada Series, 1980
acrylic on canvas
183,3 × 127 cm

Provenance
Turske & Turske, Zurich
M. Knoedler AG, Zurich
Galerie Pudelko, Germany
Private collection, Germany
Private collection, Switzerland
Private collection, Greece

Infinity Field– Lefkada Series Moiroloi for C.D.
Friedrich #XVI, 1980-1981
acrylic on paper
77 × 57 cm

Provenance
M. Knoedler AG, Zurich
Private collection
Private collection, Greece

Infinity Field-Lefkada Series #3, 1974
acrylic on paper
77 × 57 cm

Provenance
Galerie M. Knoedler, Zurich
Private collection, Switzerland
Koller, Zurich
Private collection, Greece

Infinity Field-Lefkada Series, 1978
acrylic on paper
76,2 × 55,9 cm

Provenance
Ericson Gallery, Manhattan
Private collection
Private collection, Greece

Infinity Field-Lefkada Series, 1979
acrylic on paper
77 × 57 cm

Provenance
Galleria Verlato, Milan
Private collection
Private collection, Greece

Infinity Field-Lefkada Series for C.D. Friedrich #IX, 1981
acrylic on paper
77 × 57 cm

Provenance
M. Knoedler AG, Zurich
Private collection, Switzerland
Private collection, Greece

Infinity Field-Lefkada Series, 1981
acrylic on paper
76,2 × 55,9 cm

Provenance
Ericson Gallery, Manhattan
Private collection
Private collection, Greece

Infinity Field-Lefkada Series, 1982
acrylic on canvas
153 × 153 cm

Provenance
Private collection, Germany
Ketterer Kunst, Germany
Private collection, Greece

Infinity Field-Jerusalem Series, 1983
acrylic on paper
76,2 × 55,88 cm

Provenance
Ericson Gallery, Manhattan
Private collection
Private collection, Greece

Infinity Field-Jerusalem Series, 1983
acrylic on paper
77 × 57 cm

Provenance
Galleria Verlato, Milan
Private collection
Private collection, Greece

Infinity Field-Jerusalem Series #XVI, 1984
acrylic on paper
77,4 × 56,7 cm

Provenance
Private collection, Europe
Bloomsbury, London
Private collection, Greece

Infinity Field-Jerusalem Series, 1984
acrylic on paper
77 × 57 cm

Provenance
M. Knoedler AG, Zurich
The Art Office Ltd., Houghton
VAN HAM, Cologne
Private collection, Greece

Infinity Field-Jerusalem Series-Burning Βush, 1987
acrylic on paper
77 × 57 cm

Provenance
Galleria Verlato, Milan
Private collection
Private collection, Greece

Infinity Field-Jerusalem Series-Burning Βush, 1988
acrylic on paper
77 × 57 cm

Provenance
Sotheby's New York
Hiro Gallery, Tokyo
Bonhams London
Private collection, Greece

Infinity Field-Torino Series #IX, 1986
acrylic on paper
76,2 × 57 cm

Provenance
M. Knoedler AG, Zurich
The Art Office Ltd., Houghton
VAN HAM, Cologne
Private collection, Greece

For inquiries, please contact info@roma-gallery.com

About

Roma Gallery presents Theodoros Stamos: Spiritual Vista, the first solo presentation of works by the artist at the gallery. On view from June 11 through July 4, the exhibition brings together works from the Infinity Field series (1970–1993), contributing to the reassessment of Stamos as a pivotal figure of the first generation of American Abstract Expressionists. The exhibition is curated by art historian Alia Tsagkari and Roma Gallery Director Iridanos Tsirigkoulis.

Born in Manhattan in 1922 to Greek parents from Lefkada and Sparta, Stamos emerged as a leading figure of American Abstract Expressionism during a formative period for the emergence of the post-war American avant-garde. In 1943, at the age of twenty-one, he held his first solo exhibition, organised by the legendary gallerist Betty Parsons, who recognised in his work “a sense of natural forces” and “the ability to translate this awareness into painterly expression.” During the same period, Stamos developed close relationships with Adolph Gottlieb, Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko. In 1950, together with Rothko, Pollock, Newman, Gottlieb and others, he co-signed the now historic protest letter addressed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, objecting to the exclusion of advanced abstraction from the exhibition American Painting Today–1950. The following year, Nina Leen’s iconic photograph of the “Irascibles” for Life magazine played a decisive role in publicly identifying the group with the new American art, with the young Stamos occupying a prominent position among its leading figures.

Theodoros Stamos: Spiritual Vista focuses on the Infinity Fields, the body of work that occupied Stamos from the early 1970s until the end of his life. In these works, nature ceases to function as a representational motif and is transformed into a cosmological field through which painting shifts from description toward the articulation of metaphysical inquiry. Bringing together selected Infinity Fields from the Lefkada, Jerusalem and Torino subseries, the exhibition foregrounds the artist’s distinct position between colour field painting and gestural abstraction without fully coinciding with either category. Through fissured horizons, ideographic traces and pulsating chromatic surfaces, the works trace the transformation of specific places into expanded fields of ultramarine, crimson, indigo and violet, among the most characteristic tones of Stamos’s refined chromatic vocabulary. Viewed from this perspective, the Infinity Fields extend the trajectory of Abstract Expressionism toward a more contemplative and metaphysical conception of pictorial space.

Over the course of a career spanning more than five decades, Stamos participated in some of the defining exhibitions of post-war art, including Younger American Painters (Guggenheim, 1954), The New American Painting as Shown in Eight European Countries 1958–1959 (organised by MoMA and presented at the museum in 1959), and documenta II (Kassel, 1959). His works are held today in major public and private collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, as well as the National Gallery in Athens.

Press

Press Kit

Artist

THEODOROS STAMOS

(New York 1922 – Ioannina 1997)

Born in Manhattan to Greek parents from Lefkada and Sparta, Theodoros Stamos developed an early and sustained engagement with nature, organic forms, Greek mythology, and Eastern thought, elements that would permeate his work throughout his career. At the age of fourteen, he received a scholarship to study sculpture at the American Artists School in New York. As sculpture at the School was taught through direct work with clay without preparatory drawing, Stamos remained, in essence, self-taught as a painter. In 1943, at just twenty-one years old, he held his first solo exhibition at the Wakefield Gallery and Bookshop, organised by Betty Parsons, who recognised in his work a “sense of natural forces” as well as “his ability to translate that perception into painterly expression”. Around this time, Stamos became associated with Adolph Gottlieb and Barnett Newman who, alongside Mark Rothko, were searching for a new direction beyond academic tradition and argued that primitive and mythological subjects, rendered through abstract forms, could more directly express the realities of their era. Gottlieb and Newman quickly recognised that a related sensibility already existed in Stamos’s painting. Through this relationship of mutual influence, Stamos assumed a central position among the pioneers of what would later be termed Abstract Expressionism. In 1950, together with Rothko, Newman, Jackson Pollock, Gottlieb and other artists, he co-signed the open letter addressed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, challenging the conservative orientation of the exhibition American Painting Today–1950 and demanding institutional recognition for the radical language of abstraction. Nina Leen’s 1951 photograph for Life magazine further cemented the public association of “The Irascibles” with the new American avant-garde, with the young Stamos occupying a prominent position in the front row opposite his close friend Rothko.

From the biomorphic compositions of the 1940s to the Infinity Fields of his later decades (1970–1993), Stamos developed a painterly language that combined organic forms, mythological references and primordial symbols within pulsating colour fields. Seeking a universal visual vocabulary, his work cannot be categorised exclusively either as colour field painting or gestural abstraction, but rather embodies the very core of Abstract Expressionism. From the 1960s onwards, with the Sun-Boxes and especially the Infinity Fields, his painting evolved into vibrating expanses of light and colour, where horizontal fissures, fractures and calligraphic traces activate a spiritual space of contemplation and inward experience. In 1970, Stamos returned to Greece, undertaking a decisive journey to Lefkada, the homeland of his family. Thereafter, he spent extended periods each year on the island, whose light and Ionian landscape proved fundamental to the development of the Infinity Fields, particularly the Lefkada, Jerusalem and Torino sub-series. Stamos died in Ioannina in 1997 and was buried in Lefkada.

Over the course of a career spanning more than five decades, Stamos participated in major international exhibitions, including Younger American Painters at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (1954), and The New American Painting as Shown in Eight European Countries 1958-1959 (organised by MoMA / presented at MoMA in 1959), which toured leading European institutions, including Kunsthalle Basel, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels and the Tate Gallery in London, introducing Abstract Expressionism to Europe. In 1959, he participated in the landmark documenta II in Kassel alongside Pollock, Rothko, Newman and Willem de Kooning, in one of the most important international presentations of post-war abstraction in Europe. He also participated regularly in the annual exhibitions and Biennials of the Whitney Museum of American Art from 1945 onwards, while his work appeared in major historical exhibitions at MoMA, including Dada, Surrealism and Their Heritage (1968), The New American Painting and Sculpture: The First Generation (1969), The Natural Paradise: Painting in America 1800–1950 (1976), and Primitivism in 20th Century Art (1984–85). During the 1980s and 1990s, his work was dynamically reinserted into major reassessments of Abstract Expressionism through exhibitions such as Abstract Expressionism: The Formative Years at the Whitney Museum and the Seibu Museum, Tokyo (1978), The Interpretive Link: Abstract Surrealism into Abstract Expressionism at the Whitney Museum and Walker Art Center (1986–87), and Abstract Expressionism: Works on Paper from the Metropolitan Museum of Art collection, presented at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo (1993–95).

His works are held today in important private and public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the National Gallery in Athens.