Kurt Stell Blends Midcentury Modern Design and Graphite Art

Like many college students, Kurt Stell bought a rail pass to backpack through Europe. But in his case, two months of wanderlust turned into 12 years during which he worked in graphic design for the U.S. Army in Heidelberg, Germany. One of his artistic tasks was creating covers for the Army’s Morale, Welfare and Recreation Magazine.

Before the journey that shaped his adult life, Stell had roots in visually creative pursuit.

“I got into trouble from time to time for drawing during class,” he recalls of his grade school years in Whittier, California. He studied art in community college and sold work in a gallery in Heidelberg, but only strove to become a full-time artist while living for two years in Italy.

“In Florence, I did not have money or space for paint and canvases, so I worked in graphite, Prismacolor, and watercolors,” he says.

It was not until Stell returned to the states in 1994 that he started acrylic painting. He got a job in San Diego in the same capacity as his job in Heidelberg, but with the Navy. In his spare time, he painted larger-than-life portraits, including one of a tenor sitting on his sofa in a Napoleonic pose, sporting a satin pink pillow as a bicorne hat. The 48-by-48–inch painting now hangs over the bed in the Palm Springs home he shares with David Skelley.

It was not until Stell returned to the states in 1994 that he started acrylic painting. He got a job in San Diego in the same capacity as his job in Heidelberg, but with the Navy. In his spare time, he painted larger-than-life portraits, including one of a tenor sitting on his sofa in a Napoleonic pose, sporting a satin pink pillow as a bicorne hat. The 48-by-48–inch painting now hangs over the bed in the Palm Springs home he shares with David Skelley.

Built in 1957, that Sunrise Park house fits the couple’s interest in midcentury modern design. Skelley opened Boomerang for Modern in San Diego’s Little Italy and, in 2000, moved the store to Palm Springs. Stell’s graphites of the desert’s midcentury homes sell well there (though he confides that he had to convince Skelley to include them in Boomerang’s inventory).

Much of Stell’s work centers on buildings, often high rises and sometimes edge-to-edge slices of them in glass panes. One such painting, “Résidence Montparnasse,” is shown in an October feature of Architectural Digest about a William Krisel house in Palm Springs.

“I just like the geometry of all those little boxes,” Stell says of windows. “I have always loved architecture. I enjoy the symmetry. I like styles from brutalism to midcentury modern to European castles.”

Also a fan of the 1950s sci-fi/space age, Stell puts his graphite spin on “vintage” rockets and flying saucers. One work he’s refining prominently features the one-time “futuristic” Disneyland Monorail.

Though he has developed skills in multiple media, Stell now switches between graphite and acrylic.

“I just get lost in [graphite],” he says. “It’s therapeutic. It’s slow. It’s precise. I feel very comfortable doing it. Acrylic is more challenging because of its use of color.”

Stell won the Rancho Mirage Festival of the Arts 2023 Commissioner Award and will display his work in the Thoroughly Modern Midcentury exhibition running Jan. 11 to Feb. 22, 2025, at Mad.Kat Gallery in
Rancho Mirage. He also sells work via his website, kurtstell.com.

Represented by:

Boomerang for modern

2500 N. Palm Canyon Drive, Suite A11
Palm Springs
760-880-1963