The presented artwork, Felsztyn IV from 1971 comes from a series
‘Polish Villages’. In 1970 Stella encountered the visual culture of
Polish Jews by means of Maria and Kazimierz Piechotka’s book Wooden Synagogues (1959).
The discourse arose between American abstract art and a visual identity
of Polish Jews that took place in the pre-digital era, at a time when
the free flow of ideas was significantly hindered by barriers resulting
from different political systems.

Angular, graphic, and often brightly colored, the works in Stella’s
Polish Village series were inspired by the distinct architecture of
wooden Polish synagogues built in the 17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries and
destroyed by the Nazis during World War II. The works are all named
after ruined synagogues and villages noted in this book. Using certain
arrangements of colour and variations in material, Stella is able to
create the illusion of three-dimensions as well as works that have a
presence in space. Formally, these works investigate Cubist and Russian
Constructivist themes