This work belongs to Frank Stella’s Concentric Square series, initiated in 1962. It is composed of concentric bands running parallel to the edges of a square canvas, separated by narrow unpainted gaps. Influenced in part by works such as Jasper Johns’s Target series, also represented in the museum’s collection, Stella developed a new approach to painting that focused on the medium itself, the physical reality of the picture plane, and the effects of color and tonal contrast.
This approach originated in his Black Paintings of the late 1950s, in which black bands painted with commercial house paint and thin unpainted white lines established the striped format that would continue throughout much of his subsequent work. He later expanded this investigation through paintings incorporating materials such as aluminum and copper.
In Cato Manor, Stella used acrylic paint—more vivid in color and faster drying than oil paint—applied directly to an unprimed canvas. Rejecting the illusion of pictorial space, he asserted that a painting is nothing more than a flat surface covered with paint.Having also studied history at university, Stella occasionally drew his titles from historical events and place names. Although no direct connection between the title and the work has been established, Cato Manor may derive its title from a suburb of Durban, South Africa, known in the late 1950s and early 1960s as the site of forced removals and unrest associated with apartheid policies.