Jacobson Howard Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of recent work by Frank Stella. Stella's new work titled Scarlatti Sonatas, are elegant wall mounted stainless steel spirals with fiberglass sculptural elements. The titles are named after Domenico Scarlatti's five hundred and fifty-five keyboard sonatas. The forms are a response to the music they are inspired by, looping and spiraling in space. So too, the intricate shadows the works cast resonate like fading notes. The sonatas are single movements, mostly in binary form, and are almost all
intended for the harpsichord. Only a small fraction of Scarlatti's compositions were published during his lifetime. Re-knowned harpsichordist and Scarlatti scholar, Ralph Kirkpatrick, became associated with the sonatas, and the numbering from his edition nearly always used the “K” number. The subtle shift in the composition of Stella’s work, like the sonatas, is simple and graceful.