MAMC+ presents Frank Stella retrospective 'Minimal / Maximal' in Saint-Étienne

The Musée d’art moderne et contemporain de Saint-Étienne Métropole, known as MAMC+, opened a large retrospective devoted to Frank Stella on 27 June 2026, and the exhibition runs through 3 January 2027. Titled 'Frank Stella. Minimal / Maximal', the show is presented as a major monographic project within the museum’s 2026 season focused on the United States. A vernissage is scheduled for 26 June from 6:30 p.m.

According to the museum, the exhibition is the first museum monograph devoted to Stella since his death in 2024. It also follows a long gap in France: MAMC+ says that since projects mounted in the 1980s at CAPC in Bordeaux and the Centre Georges Pompidou’s MNAM, no French museum has presented this major body of work in such breadth. The show takes as its starting point three important works already in the museum’s collection and aims to retrace the artist’s development chronologically from the 1950s onward.

MAMC+ presents Stella’s career as one of continual renewal in abstraction. The exhibition is set out over nearly 1,000 square metres and brings together around 100 works spanning painting, sculpture, printmaking and architecture. The museum says the display is intended to offer French audiences, for the first time, a broad view of the historical evolution of Stella’s work. The featured artists listed alongside Stella in the exhibition context include Carl Andre, Larry Bell, Hollis Frampton, Hans Hofmann, Donald Judd, Vassily Kandinsky, Ellsworth Kelly, Yves Klein, Franz Kline, Agnès Martin, Maud Morgan, Patrick Morgan, Kenneth Noland and Mark Rothko.

The project draws heavily on collaboration with the Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Academy in Andover, which holds a substantial donation Stella made in 1991 in homage to the school where he studied from 1950 to 1954. That material, drawn from both his own production and his personal collection, is used to address his beginnings and the decisive encounters he had with teachers and artists of his generation. The museum also says institutional and private loans, mainly from France, will help clarify Stella’s singular reception in the country.

The exhibition is organized in the context of MAMC+’s 2026 American season, which marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence of the United States and is supported by the FRAME network, the French American Museum Exchange. The museum presents the season as an opportunity to highlight its reference collection in American art. 'Frank Stella. Minimal / Maximal' has also received the label 'Exposition d’intérêt national' from the French Ministry of Culture.

The exhibition is curated by Alexandre Quoi, deputy director and head of the museum’s scientific department. The museum notes his previous curatorial work at Centre Pompidou-Metz and at MAMC+, where he has overseen exhibitions including 'The House of Dust. Collections au féminin', 'BRAND NEW! Dons récents aux collections', 'Alison Knowles. Une rétrospective' and 'La Galaxie Fluxus'. Rachel Stella is scientific adviser to the exhibition. The museum also links the project to a wider programme of guided visits, with adult tours of 'Frank Stella. Minimal / Maximal' scheduled on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays at 2:30 p.m.