KURT STELL
Kurt was born in Wichita, Kansas. His family moved to the Los Angeles suburb of Whittier in 1964, where he grew up. Drawing from an early age, he attended community college art courses and gallery display/design during the last year of high school, graduating in 1976, and continued his art studies with printmaking, advertising, rendering, illustration and film.
In 1982, Kurt traveled to Europe with a two-month Interrail Pass, landing in Heidelberg, Germany. He was hired by the American European Command as a graphic designer, which allowed him to remain in Germany. He continued his artwork of mostly architectural graphite and watercolor works. These were sold through Kunsthandlung W. Welker Gmbh, enabling him to move to Florence, Italy in 1986 to work full-time as an artist. Returning to Heidelberg in 1991, Kurt joined the Marketing Office once again. Learning lithography from artist Luitgard Borlinghaus, creating 25 watercolor Illustrations for a children’s book by Raimund Manowita, and producing 14 City Posters of European cities for R&N Verlag Gmbh were among the highlights.
Upon returning to San Diego in 1994, Kurt worked as a full-time graphic designer while continuing his art. He pursued realism during the 2000’s but shifted to figurative subjects producing a number of larger-than-life acrylic portrait “snapshots” of friends and family during exceptional moments. He continued with commissions, select showings and open studios in San Diego until retiring from graphic design in 2019.
At the end of that year, Kurt and his husband, David moved to Palm Springs, relocating their modern furniture shop to the new community.
Kurt’s love for the order of architecture, with its balances of form and function, the contrast of materials from stone, wood, glass to steel. He explores using various mediums of acrylic, graphite and watercolor to depict the structures that make a city to house us, entertain us, or to supply a professional space.
Cropped views of mega-structures or others lost to history, exaggerating color, contrast and material are applied. Works with graphite are driven by accuracy, while with acrylic, they are looser with an exaggeration of colors for a more extreme and personal connection with the subject.
Since being an architect is the path not taken, the rendering of such is the direction Kurt is currently perusing.
Studied
1991 Luitgard Borlinghaus, Eichtersheim, Germany
1989 Maria Pufahl, Larchino, Italy
Publications
2024 Los Angeles Times
2021 Palm Springs Life Magazine
2014 sandiegomagazine.com
2009 Apartment Therapy, blog
1984-86 R&N Verlag, Gmbh.
1985 Overseas Magazine
Selected Exhibitions
2023 Rancho Mirage Festival of the Arts, Rancho Mirage, CA
2023 Desert Open Studios, Palm Springs, CA
2021 Boomerang for Modern, Palm Springs, CA
2019 Cedar Street Studio, San Diego, CA
2014 The Blue Azul Collection, La Jolla, CA
2009 Boomerang for Modern, San Diego, CA
2008 Museum of the Living Artist, San Diego, CA
2005 Sun Cafй, San Diego, CA
2004 Uptown Partnership, San Diego, CA
2002 Contemporary Art in Orange County, CA
1995 New York West Gallery, Long Beach, CA
1988 Kunsthandlung Welkers, Heidelberg, Germany
