Opening remarks by Joseph L. Goldstein

Essay by Jury Chair Joseph L. Goldstein

Reimagination in art and science: seeing the familiar in a new light and creating new things that didn’t exist before

Many groundbreaking works in art and science owe their origins to the creative spark ignited by reimagination – the process whereby artists and scientists reinterpret and reframe past and existing knowledge, envisioning it in a new context that reveals new possibilities. Artistic and scientific innovation originating from reimagination brings to mind William Faulkner’s famous line, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” (1)

One of the most ingenious examples of artistic reimagination involves a monumental sculpture that was installed two years ago in the courtyard of the Royal Academy of Art in London (2). This sculpture reinterprets Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper – his renowned mural painting executed 527 years ago on the wall of a monastery in Milan.

Leonardo’s The Last Supper (Fig. 1) depicts Jesus’ final meal with his 12 apostles just before his crucifixion. The mural is renowned for Leonardo’s innovative technique of creating a three-dimensional perspective that draws our attention directly to Jesus’ head. In the painting, Leonardo situates Judas, the betrayer, in the fourth seat from the left end of the table, which integrates him among the apostles rather than isolating him as a solitary figure. The composition is deceptively simple, but conveys a powerful narrative.

The Last Supper Leonardo da Vinci

Fig. 1. Leonardo da Vinci. The Last Supper. c. 1495. Tempera on plaster. 15 x 29 ft. Santa Maria della Grazie, Milan, Italy. Image credit: Leonardo da Vinci (artist).

From Leonardo’s Last Supper to Strachan’s Reimagined First Supper

Fig. 2A shows an image of the contemporary sculpture that was recently installed in the Royal Academy’s courtyard. This mammoth bronze and goldleaf sculpture – 31 feet long and 9 feet tall – was created by the Bahama-born artist, Tavares Strachan. Strachan reimagines Leonardo’s The Last Supper and titles his work The First Supper. Instead of depicting Jesus and his apostles, Strachan assembles a convivial gathering of 12 notable Black activists, artists, and scientists from the past (3, 4).

Tavares Strachan. The First Supper (Galaxy Black)

Fig. 2. Tavares Strachan. The First Supper (Galaxy Black). (A) Public sculpture installed in the courtyard of The Royal Academy in London, February 3 to April 28, 2024. 9 x 31 ft. Numbers below the table denote the following individuals in the sculpture: 1, Haile Selassie; 2) Harriet Tubman; 3) Shirley Chisholm; 4) King Tubby; 5) Derek Walcott; 6) Robert Henry Lawrence; and 7) Tavares Strachan. Image credit: Tavares Strachan (artist). (B) Enlarged detail showing surface of sculpture painted black contrasted with gilded details such as chain on Haile Selassie’s uniform. Image credit: the artist and Perrotin Gallery, collection of Glenstone Museum, Potomac, Maryland.

Seated at the center of the table in the manner of Christ is Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974, who was revered for modernizing his country. Others at the table include Harriet Tubman, a Black freedom fighter known for her leadership in the Underground Railroad that freed more than 100,000 enslaved Black people in the 19th century; Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Congress in 1972; King Tubby, a Jamaican sound engineer and electronic music pioneer; Derek Walcott, a West Indies poet and playwright who received the 1992 Nobel Prize in literature; and Robert Henry Lawrence, the first African American astronaut selected for the U.S. space program (2-4).

The sculptor, Tavares Strachan, places himself away from the table at the extreme left, which may be his way of saying that he is the Judas who does not wish to portray himself as a historical figure.

Fig. 2B shows an enlarged view, showing the surface of the sculpture painted in black with contrasting gilded details such as the chain on Selassie’s uniform. The dining table is adorned with an array of goblets, wine, bananas, cocoa pods, and other foods consumed by Caribbean and African cultures. It would be fun to eavesdrop on the dinner table conversation of these 12 historical figures who were meeting each other for the first time. How would the poet Derek Walcott respond to the astronaut’s humdrum question: “What were you doing when you heard you had won the Nobel Prize?”

Strachan tells us that his purpose in creating The First Supper is “not to cast aspersions on the whiteness in paintings like Leonardo’s,” but to emphasize the importance of commemorating Black individuals whose stories have shaped our history and culture.

El Greco. The Last Supper & Salvador Dali. The Sacrament of the Last Supper

Fig. 3. (A) El Greco. The Last Supper. 1568. Oil on canvas. 17 x 20 in. Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna, Italy. Image credit: El Greco (artist). (B) Salvador Dali. The Sacrament of the Last Supper. 1955. Oil on canvas. 66 x 105 in. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Image credit: © 2026 Fundació Gala-Salvador Dali, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Other Reimagined Last Suppers: From El Greco to Andy Warhol

Like Strachan, hundreds of artists have been captivated by Leonardo’s Last Supper. The Phaidon Press has published a picture book on 115 reimagined paintings of Leonardo’s iconic image, including those of Hans Holbein, Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, Rubens, El Greco, Goya, Salvador Dali, and Andy Warhol (5). My favorite of these paintings is the one by El Greco.

Surprisingly, Picasso, who is renowned for his reinterpretation of masterpieces, such as Velasquez’s Las Meninas, Delacroix’s Women of Algiers, and Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass, never painted a reimagined version of Leonardo’s Last Supper. Biblical themes were not Picasso’s cup of tea.

El Greco’s Last Supper (Fig. 3A) painted in 1568, exemplifies his Mannerist style of elongated figures and vivid colors – markedly distinct from Leonardo’s balanced and orderly style. El Greco situates Judas – not among the disciples – but alone dressed in dark green, highlighting his role as the betrayer (5).

The most futuristic rendition of Leonardo’s Last Supper was created by the Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dali (Fig. 3B). Dali highlights the cosmic nature of the event by placing Jesus in front of a 12-sided dodecahedron, a shape that represents the universe in classical philosophy. His ethereal reimagination is a far cry from Leonardo’s earthy realism. Dali’s Last Supper is on permanent display at The National Gallery of Art in Washington (5).

Ben Willikens. The Last Supper, Zeng Fanzhi. The Last Supper & Andy Warhol. The Last Supper

Fig. 4. (A) Ben Willikens. The Last Supper. 1976-9. Triptych, acrylic on canvas. 10 x 20 ft. Kunstmuseum, Bochum, Germany, having previously been exhibited at museums in Stuttgart and Frankfurt am Main. Image credit: © 2026 ARS, New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. (B) Zeng Fanzhi. The Last Supper. 2001. Oil on canvas. 7.2 x 13 ft. Privately owned. Sold at Sotheby’s auction in Hong Kong on Oct. 6, 2013 for $23.3 million. Image credit: © 2026 Zeng Fanzhi. (C) Andy Warhol. The Last Supper. 1986. Synthetic polymer paint on canvas. 9.9 x 21.9 ft. Museum of Modern Art. New York City, NY. Image credit: © 2026 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Licensed by ARS, New York.

The Last Supper by the contemporary German artist Bill Willikens (Fig. 4A) stands in striking contrast to the Last Suppers of El Greco and Salvador Dali. Willikens’ 1976 triptych painting is haunting in its architectural resemblance to the room in Milan where Leonardo painted The Last Supper (5). Yet, this room is empty – Jesus is no longer there and has apparently ascended to heaven. The Biblical scene is reduced to its core architectural elements of light and space. The painting, which is currently on display at the Kunstmuseum in Bochum, Germany, has generated lively discussions among art critics and philosophers, whose prevailing view is that the stripping away of the religious iconography invites the viewer to contemplate The Last Supper in a more personal and deeper spiritual way.

The next reimagined Last Supper takes us from the spiritual to the secular. This 2001 painting is by one of China’s best known contemporary artists, Zeng Fanzhi (6). Here, the artist reimagines the disciples as young Chinese men seated around a table, reminiscent of Leonardo’s composition, but with a modern twist (Fig. 4B). All the sitters – with one exception – are wearing red scarves, a symbol of Communism. Judas, who is seated fourth from the left in the traditional Leonardo position, is wearing a yellow necktie, a symbol of capitalism. Rather than eating bread, the subjects dine on watermelon, which Fanzhi associates with Jesus’ flesh and blood – symbolizing mutilation and betrayal (7). The painting is remarkable in that it merges Renaissance iconography with a Chinese historical context. In 2013, Fanzhi’s Last Supper was sold at Sotheby’s for an amazing $23 million, setting a record for contemporary Asian artwork that still holds to this day (7).

During the two years prior to his death in 1987, Andy Warhol created more than 100 Last Suppers based on Leonardo’s masterpiece, the last of which was a single painting repeated 60 times (8, 9). One of the most striking of the 100 works, in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, is a silkscreen of Jesus and the Disciples overlayed with the corporate logos of General Electric and Dove soap (Fig. 4C). This juxtaposition of commercialism with spirituality reflects Warhol’s view that consumer icons have become as powerful and pervasive as religious symbols in contemporary culture.

Francis Bacon’s Reimagination of Velasquez’s Pope Innocent X

The Irish-born British artist Francis Bacon (1909-1992), one of the foremost artists of the 20th century, was a master of reimagination, yet he never reimagined Leonardo’s Last Supper. His most famous reimaged image, the so-called “screaming pope,” was inspired by Diego Velazquez’s life-like portrait of Pope Innocent X, the unscrupulous pope who ironically took the name Innocent. (10) Painted in 1650, Velazquez depicted the pope sitting confidently in his armchair throne ensconced in the papal regalia with crimson cap, crimson cape, and white apron (Fig. 5A). Bacon, who detested authority figures, subverted Velazquez’s pope by placing him on a throne that resembles an electric chair, cordoned off by yellow rails and encased in vertical lines that run up and down the painting like bars of a prison cell (Fig. 5 B). Bacon dressed the pope in gaudy, blood-stained clothes and distorted his face with shattered glasses and a screaming mouth.

Diego Velasquez. Portrait of Pope Innocent X Pamphilj &

Fig. 5. Two portraits of Pope Innocent X. (A) Diego Velasquez. Portrait of Pope Innocent X Pamphilj. c. 1650. Oil on canvas. 49.9 x 55.5 in. Palazzo Doria Pamphili, Rome, Italy. Image credit: Diego Velasquez (artist). (B) Francis Bacon. Study after Velasquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X. 1953 [CR 53-02]. Oil on canvas. 46.5 x 60.2 in. Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa. Image credit: © 2026 The Estate of Francis Bacon. All rights reserved. DACS, London / ARS, New York.

Bacon designed the screaming pope to shake people out of their traditional ways of thinking, incentivizing them to scream out with new ideas and new ways of thinking – the essence of reimagination. In Bacon’s words: “Great art is always a way of concentrating, reinventing what is called fact …. tearing away the veils that fact acquires through time …. Really good artists tear down those veils.” (10, p. 12).

Reimagination in Biomedical Science

Like great art, great science thrives when scientists tear away the veils of old facts, scream out with new ideas, and become ignited with the creative sparks of reimagination. In the biomedical sciences, reimagination drives innovation by taking existing ideas and endowing them with fresh perspectives and possibilities that didn’t exist before. Table 1 describes six examples of reimagined discoveries in biomedical science, including AlphaFold, GLP-1 for obesity, next-generation sequencing, organoids, drugs for myeloma, and ubiquitination. In each of these discoveries the essence of the original idea remains, but it is interpreted and repurposed in a new and creative way.

Reinvention in Biomedical Science – A Related Process

In discussions of scientific discoveries, the term reinvention is often used interchangeably with reimagination. But, in my view these two processes of discovery can be distinguished based on their starting point and scope. Reimagination, as discussed above, begins with existing ideas and envisions them in a new way that creates innovative possibilities. Reinvention, in contrast, breaks completely with existing ideas and produces something radically new from the ground up. Table 2 describes six examples of reinvented discoveries in biomedical science. These include reverse transcriptase, gene splicing, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), prions, in vitro fertilization, and Helicobacter as the cause of stomach ulcers. Each of these discoveries led to a new paradigm by forcing scientists to reconceive fundamental assumptions.

Reimagination and Reinvention: The Scientific Analogs of Creative Destruction in Economics

Creative destruction, the concept in economics coined by Joseph Schumpeter, describes the process by which innovations in products and business models reshape economic structures by replacing old ones and creating new ones (11). Creative destruction is relevant to biomedical research in that reimagination and reinvention are two of the most powerful creative forces that drive the replacement of old scientific ideas with new ones. The reimagined and reinvented discoveries discussed in Tables 1 and 2 opened new fields of biomedical research, many of which have been recognized by Lasker Awards and/or Nobel Prizes.

2026 Lasker Awards: Illustrating the Power of Reimagination and Reinvention.

This year’s Lasker Awards illustrate how reimagination and reinvention allow scientists and artists to reveal new ideas and knowledge that lead to new creative possibilities. For a detailed account of the 2026 Lasker Awards, please refer to the Lasker website and to the accompanying articles in this issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A summary of each of the awards appears below.

Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award. The recipients of this award are Emmanual Mignot (Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA) and Masashi Yanagisawa (University of Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan). The awardees are recognized for their identification of orexin, a brain peptide that maintains wakefulness, and discovery that orexin deficiency causes uncontrolled sleep in narcolepsy – revealing a key insight into the nature of sleep. This work is a classic example of scientific reinvention. The discovery of orexin and its role in the causation of narcolepsy came as a total surprise – like a bolt from the blue – that was not based on any prior knowledge or idea, opening a new field of research on the nature of sleep. Like food and sex, sleep is one of the three foundational pillars of human existence. Several drugs that block orexin receptors have been approved for treatment of insomnia; conversely, a drug that activates orexin receptor-2 for treating narcolepsy is in the late stage of development.

Lasker~DeBakey Clinical Medical Science Award. The recipients of this award are three scientists from Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. (Tokyo, Japan) – Kunihiro Hattori, Tomoyuki Igawa, and Takehisa Kitazawa. The awardees are recognized for the invention of a bispecific antibody that joins blood clotting Factors IX and X – restoring the deficient Factor VIII activity in hemophilia A and preventing the severe bleeding in this hereditary disorder. The vision, creativity, and technical ingenuity of these scientists in developing a Factor VIII-mimetic in the form of a bispecific IgG antibody, called Hemlibra® (emicizumab), is a classic example of scientific reimagination, reframing in a revolutionary way previous approaches for treating hemophilia. Such approaches involved the use of plasma replacement and/or plasma-derived Factor VIII concentrates for which many treated patients developed hepatitis, HIV, and/or neutralizing antibodies to Factor VIII. Moreover, bleeding was poorly controlled. The awardees’ bispecific antibody, the first bispecific IgG approved by the FDA for therapeutic use in 2017, has virtually eliminated the bleeding in hemophilia A patients, even in those with Factor VIII antibodies. Hemlibra® has now been approved in more than 120 countries and has enhanced the quality of life in >30,000 individuals worldwide.

Lasker~Bloomberg Public Service Award. The recipient of this award is Michael J. Fox (New York, NY), who is recognized for empowering patients’ voices and accelerating research to find improved therapies and a cure for Parkinson’s disease. As a young actor, Fox achieved superstar status for his leading roles in the Back to the Future film trilogy (1985-90) and in the hit NBC sitcom Family Ties (1982-89). In 1990 at age 29, he learned that he had Parkinson’s disease, a diagnosis that he shared with the public in 1998 as a means to dispel the stigma surrounding the disease. In 2000, he launched the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, which has spurred scientists, clinicians, industry leaders, and donors to join patients in the search for therapies with the goal of one day finding a cure for Parkinson’s – an extraordinary example of philanthropic reimagination. More than 1 million people in the United States are living with Parkinson’s. Approximately 1% of adults aged 60 and older have the disease, rising to 3% by age 80. The Michael J. Fox Foundation is the largest nonprofit/private funder of Parkinson’s research in the world, having funded $3 billion in grants to date. Its annual funding exceeds that of the U.S. government. In addition to being the largest funder of Parkinson’s research, the Foundation plays a key role as a core coordinator that helps recruit volunteers for clinical trials.

Read Article in PNAS

References

  1. W. Faulkner. Requiem for a Nun. (Vantage Books, Random House, Inc., New York, NY, 1994), p. 73.
  2. M. Bassi. Monumental sculpture reimagines ‘The Last Supper’ with Black historical figures. Smithsonian Magazine, 8 February, 2024.
  3. Marian Goodman Gallery. Tavares Strachan: Royal Academy of Arts.
  4. Jo Lawson-Tancred. How Taveres Strachan Reimagined Leonardo’s ‘Last Supper.’
  5. Editors. Last Supper (Phaidon Press, London, UK, 2000).
  6. Zeng Fanzhi
  7. G. Chung, Z. Fanzhi, Zeng Fanzhi: Catalogue Raisonné, Volume I (Skira Arte Publishing Co., Milan, Italy, 2020).
  8. A. Haden-Guest. Warhol’s Last Supper.
  9. J. Beck. Andy Warhol: Sixty Last Suppers. Gagosian Quarterly. 23 August 2018.
  10. H. M. Davies. Francis Bacon: The Papal Portraits of 1953. Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.
  11. T. K. McCraw. Prophet of Innovation: Joseph Schumpeter and Creative Destruction. (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2007).

Table 1. Examples of reimagined discoveries in biomedical science

Reimagined discovery

How existing concepts are reimagined to form new insights and possibilities

AlphaFold

Time-consuming and laborious X-ray crystallography and cryo-EM replaced by rapid, highly accurate artificial-intelligence (technology) that determines a protein’s 3-dimensional structure – even without a known similar structure

GLP-1 for obesity

GLP-1 for lowering blood sugar in diabetes became an obesity therapy when engineered analogues of the original GLP-1 molecule produced potent appetite suppression and weight loss

Next-generation sequencing

Transformed the single-fragment Sanger sequencing into a massively parallel analysis of millions of DNA fragments, decreasing costs and transforming genomics

Organoids

Flat 2-dimensional cell cultures recast as 3-dimensional structures that mimic organ function

Drugs for myeloma

Thalidomide, originally developed as a sleeping pill, led to a new class of drugs for multiple myeloma (e.g. lenalidomide and pomalidomide) after its immune-modulating and anti-angiogenic properties were found to inhibit growth of cancers

Ubiquitination

Cellular process of protein turnover and removal is recast as a highly regulated, energy-dependent process where proteins are tagged for destruction by the tiny 76-amino acid protein ubiquitin, which targets them to the proteasome for degradation

Table 2. Examples of reinvented discoveries in biomedical science

Reinvented discovery

How new paradigms are formed by breaking with existing ideas

Reverse transcriptase

Overturned the one-way central dogma of DNA — RNA — Protein, showing that information can flow from RNA back to DNA, which enabled synthesis of cDNAs that can be ligated into plasmid vectors for use in gene cloning

Gene splicing

Changed the definition of a gene from a continuous stretch of DNA to one interrupted by introns, indicating that messenger RNAs must be spliced together to form proteins

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs)

iPSCs fundamentally altered stem cell biology by providing a new way to generate pluripotent cells from adult somatic cells without relying on embryonic stem cells

Prions

Introduced the heretical idea that a protein (without nucleic acid) could be infectious by transmitting its abnormal conformation onto normal proteins, causing them to misfold and propagate disease

In vitro fertilization

Radically upended reproductive medicine by enabling fertilization and embryo development outside the human body – previously believed to be biologically impossible

Helicobacter and stomach ulcers

Identification of the bacteria Helicobacter pylori as a cause of peptic ulcer disease and its cure by eradicating the bacterial infection that overturned decades of clinical dogma that ulcers resulted from stress and excess acid

Earl Sutherland’s Discovery of a Biological Principle

Biological systems are inherently messy, involving countless complex interactions among molecules, cells, and tissues — all operating in the context of changing environments. In recent decades, scientific research has increasingly relied on Big Data and technologies such as genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, imaging, and artificial intelligence. How scientists extract meaningful insights from these vast datasets presents a formidable challenge.

A time-tested way to address this challenge is by starting with simple systems that can strip away the nonessential elements. In the 1950s, Earl Sutherland sought to understand how the hormones epinephrine and glucagon induce glycogen breakdown in the liver to produce glucose. He began with liver slices, progressing to cell extracts and then to purified enzymes. His approach revealed a groundbreaking discovery: the existence of a small molecule called cyclic AMP (cyclic adenosine 3′-5′-monophosphate). This molecule acted as an intermediary “second messenger,” transmitting signals from hormones at the cell surface to target enzymes inside the cell (reviewed in ref. 1).

representation of the first signaling pathway involving cyclic AMP

Fig. 1. Schematic representation of the first signaling pathway involving cyclic AMP, which was discovered and first published by Earl Sutherland in 1966 (2) and reprinted in his Nobel Lecture in 1972 (1). Image credit: Adapted from ref. 2, Nancy L. Heard (UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX).
Fig. 2. Schematic representation of a current version of a signaling pathway involving cyclic AMP (shaded in yellow). Illustration reproduced courtesy of Cell Signaling Technology, Inc.

Sutherland proposed an elegantly simple three-step mechanism: 1) the hormone (epinephrine or glucagon), referred to as the “first messenger,” binds to its hypothesized receptor on the cell surface; 2) this activates an enzyme called adenylyl cyclase, which produces cyclic AMP; and 3) cyclic AMP, the “second messenger,” activates enzymes that lead to glycogen breakdown and glucose production. Importantly, he discovered that cyclic AMP is formed within the cell membrane, suggesting that the hormone itself never enters the cell. Figure 1 shows a schematic representation of Sutherland’s second messenger concept (2).

The Impact of Sutherland’s Work

Sutherland’s minimalist concept, published in the mid 1960’s, inaugurated the field of cell signaling. It paved the way for numerous discoveries that rapidly followed, including cyclic AMP-dependent protein kinases, G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), and other second messenger molecules, such as cyclic GMP, inositol trisphosphate, calcium, and nitric oxide.

Sutherland’s work had far-reaching implications, influencing scientific thinking about cellular communication and spawning 60 years of research by thousands of scientists who elucidated as many as 105 new signaling pathways – like Ras/MAPK/ERK, WNT/β-Catenin, Hedgehog, steroid hormones, JAK/STAT, TGF-β, NF-κB, mTORCs, SREBPs, cGAS/STING/γ-Interferon, etc. (3). These pathways govern virtually all cellular functions and physiological processes in living organisms. Much of the remarkable growth of the cell signaling field can be attributed to the biotechnology company, Cell Signaling Technology, Inc., which markets more than 16,000 products. These include antibodies, chemical reagents, recombinant proteins, and kits, which are available for probing the 105 signaling pathways (https://www.cellsignal.com). Figure 2 shows a schematic representation of one of these pathways – the “GPCR, Calcium, cyclic AMP Pathway” – the complexity of which is a far cry from Sutherland’s original minimalist cyclic AMP pathway shown in Fig.1.

For his pioneering scientific work, Sutherland received the Lasker Basic Research Award in 1970 and the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1971 (4).

Frank Stella’s work Black Paintings

Fig. 3. Examples of two of Frank Stella’s works in the original Black Paintings series. enamel on canvas. 1959. (A) Jill. 7.6 x 6.6 ft. (B) Die Fahne hoch. 10.5 x 6 ft. © 2025 Frank Stella / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Frank Stella’s work

Fig. 4. Evolution of Frank Stella’s style: from the minimalism of his early Black Paintings to his later paintings characterized by vibrant colors, canvases with altered shapes, and structural components extending from the canvas. (A) Jasper’s Dilemma (1962-1963). alkyd on canvas. 6.4 x 12.8 ft. (B) Gur III (1968). fluorescent alkyd on canvas. 10 x 15 ft. (C) Gobba, zappa e collotorto (1985). oil, fluorescent alkyd, acrylic, and printing ink on etched magnesium and aluminum. 11.4 x 10 x 2.9 ft. © 2025 Frank Stella / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Frank Stella’s Evolution from Simplicity to Complexity

Stella’s early works, known as the Black Paintings, were created between 1958 and 1960 when he was just 22 years old (5). Each of the 14 paintings in the Black Paintings series consisted of a different geometric pattern of uniform black stripes separated by thin pinstripes of unpainted canvas (Figs. 3A and B). Their stark simplicity, devoid of symbolism and depth, was a radical departure from the complex, multi-colored expressive style of artists like Jackson Pollack and Willem de Kooning, whose compositions dominated the art world at the time. The Black Paintings took the art world by storm.

Even though Stella’s minimalism gained widespread acclaim, he did not remain confined to this style. In the 1960s, he began painting on canvases with varied shapes, including concentric squares and polygons, and adorned them with sparkling colors. One notable work from this period, is his painting Jasper’s Dilemma (Fig. 4A), which features two identical panels — one in color, the other in grey tones. This painting was inspired by a statement from fellow artist Jasper Johns: “The more I paint in color, the more I see everything in black” (6). Jasper’s Dilemma became the stimulus for a monumental Stella sculpture (discussed below). In 1970, at age 34, Stella became the youngest artist to receive a full-scale retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art (5).

Stella’s creativity continued to evolve. By the 1970s, he introduced large-scale paintings with complex interlocking and overlapping patterns inspired by the curves of the protractor, a simple geometric tool for measuring angles. His use of fluorescent colors added a new level of vibrancy to the Protractor series (Fig. 4B)

Breaking Boundaries with Three-Dimensional Art

In the late 1970s and 1980s, Stella — the master of reinvention — changed course again, abandoning the flat canvas and moving towards three-dimensionality with structural components that extended out from the canvas (Fig.4C). These visually stunning pieces combined elaborate sculptural forms painted with ravishing colors (7). In 1987, the Museum of Modern Art gave Stella a second retrospective exhibition — unprecedented for a living artist.

Over a 12-year period from 1985 to 1997, Stella produced his iconic Moby Dick series, a set of 266 paintings, metal sculptures, collages, woodcuts, and prints inspired by Herman Melville’s novel (8). One of these works, The Fountain, is based on Chapter 85 of Moby Dick (9). It measures over 23 feet in length. It is one of the largest prints ever created and involves seven different artistic techniques, including woodcut, etching, collage, and painting with 67 colors (Fig.5). Stella used swirling black shapes and rainbow-like crescents to evoke Melville’s description of a whale’s spout.

Frank Stella's work The Fountain

Fig. 5. Frank Stella. The Fountain (1992). hand-colored woodcut, etching, aquatint, relief, drypoint, screenprint collage on three sheets of handmade paper. 7.6 x 23 ft. © 2025 Frank Stella / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

In his later years, Stella integrated digital technologies into his creative process. His final exhibition in 2024 at age 87 featured three massive sculptures – each 16-18 feet tall supported by a single metal pole on a wheeled base and adorned with an explosive array of sparkling colors (Fig.6). Stella designed these sculptures with computer programs, which were fabricated with fiberglass and aluminum and then sprayed with car paint (10). These psychedelic sculptures are among Stella’s most inventive and extreme abstract works – a far cry from the simplicity of the Black Paintings.

Frank Stella. K.144

Fig. 6. Frank Stella. K.144 Large Version (2014). fiberglass on foam core. 16.4 x 17.3 x 12.5 ft. © 2025 Frank Stella / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Frank Stella. Jasper’s Split Star

Fig. 7. Frank Stella. Jasper’s Split Star (2017). 6 solid aluminum sides / 6 painted open grids. 16.8 x 21.4 x 20.8 ft. Installed in front of 7 World Trade Center on Nov. 22, 2021. © 2025 Frank Stella / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Stella’s Legacy of Reinvention

In addition to his indoor artwork, Stella produced many large-scale outdoor works, including his Star series that features complex, geometric star shapes displayed in sculpture gardens and public places throughout the world. One such 21-foot-tall sculpture, Jasper’s Split Star, is constructed out of 12 geometric pieces with six solid unpainted aluminum sides and six open sides spray-painted in pale shades of blue, purple, and grey (Fig. 7). The work was installed in 2021 in the public plaza in front of 7 World Trade Center in lower Manhattan (12). The two split faces of the sculpture – one colored and the other unpainted – hark back to Stella’s 1962 painting Jasper’s Dilemma (described above; Fig. 4A).

Throughout his 66-year career, Stella mastered the art of reinvention, as his work evolved from minimalism to maximalism. His passion for innovation in color, shape, and technology continually redefined the relationship between art and perception (13). He famously stated, “What you see is what you see,” emphasizing the purity of visual experience (14). Stella’s work has been widely exhibited and collected by major museums throughout the world.

A Shared Journey: The Power of Simplicity

Both Sutherland and Stella began with reductionist approaches in their respective fields. Sutherland isolated specific cellular responses to hormones. His discovery of cyclic AMP spawned a new field of research in which thousands of scientists went on to reveal more than 100 new signaling pathways essential to life. Similarly, Stella reduced paintings to their most basic elements before expanding into increasingly intricate and dynamic works that combined painting with sculpture in a three-dimensional form.

The work of Sutherland and Stella embodies the sentiment captured by Leonardo da Vinci’s famous quote “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” (14). Through their groundbreaking contributions, they have left enduring legacies in science and art, inspiring future generations to explore the transformative power of simplicity as a stepping-stone to innovation.

2025 Lasker Awards: Various Paths to Innovation and Discovery

As described above, simple reductionist approaches can evolve increasingly into more complex dynamic work that leads to transformative ideas and discoveries. Various paths to innovation from the simple to the complex are exemplified by the discoveries of this year’s Lasker winners. For a detailed account of the 2025 Lasker Awards, please refer to the Lasker website at https://laskerfoundation.org and to the accompanying articles in this issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A brief summary of the awards appears below.

Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award. The recipients of this award are Dirk Görlich (Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences, Göttingen) and Steven L. McKnight, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas). The awardees are recognized for their discoveries that exposed the structures and functions of low-complexity domains within protein sequences, revealing new principles of intracellular transport and cellular organization. Low-complexity domains (LCDs) are regions within proteins composed predominantly of a few types of amino acids rather than the diverse mix of 20 in most protein regions. These unstructured LCDs comprise 15-20% of the coding sequences in the human genome. Görlich discovered that LCDs in nucleoporin proteins containing phenylalanine-glycine (FG) repeats can form a hydrogel representative of the inside of the nuclear pore complex. This FG hydrogel acts as a highly selective permeability barrier. Transporter receptors penetrate the hydrogel and carry their cargo protein across the pore. Gorlich’s demonstration that LCDs can self-associate and phase separate provided early biochemical evidence for formation of membraneless compartments. McKnight characterized additional proteins with LCDs that form hydrogels (e.g., FUS, TDP43, the ribonucleoprotein hnRNPA2, and certain intermediate filaments). Importantly, he discovered that phase separation by these proteins is mediated by reversible cross beta interactions between LCDs, explaining how membraneless puncta appear and disappear. Genetic evidence showed that disease-causing point mutations can make these membraneless structures excessively stable, explaining protein aggregation in certain inherited neurological diseases. The work of McKnight and Gorlich has transformed our understanding of cellular organization by showing that a significant portion of the proteome — those 15-20% of proteins with LCDs – enables cells to create dynamic, reversible structures that organize and regulate cell function beyond traditional membrane-bound organelles.

Lasker~DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award. The recipients of this award are Michael J. Welsh (University of Iowa), Jesús (Tito) González (Formerly of Vertex Pharmaceuticals), and Paul A. Negulescu (Vertex Pharmaceuticals, San Diego). The awardees are recognized for their key roles in developing a novel treatment for cystic fibrosis – a triple-drug combination that saves the lives of people with this lethal genetic disease. Cystic fibrosis (CF) is caused by autosomal recessive mutations that disrupt the function of CFTR, the protein channel that transports chloride and bicarbonate ions across cell membranes. Welsh made major contributions to understanding the function of CFTR and its dysfunction when mutated in CF. González developed a novel FRET-based voltage sensor assay that was used to screen for drugs that restore function to the mutant CFTR proteins. Negulescu, the leader and champion of the CF program for more than 20 years, assembled the people and expertise necessary for large-scale mutation-specific testing (Fred Van Goor) and medicinal chemistry (Sabine Hadida). The FDA-approved, triple-drug combination (Trikafta®) — identified by Negulescu’s team — corrects the folding, trafficking, and activity of mutant CFTR proteins. This orally administered drug is now used by tens of thousands of CF patients throughout the world. Its development represents a true milestone in the history of biomedical research and clinical medicine.

Lasker~Koshland Special Achievement Award in Medical Science. The recipient of this year’s award is Lucy Shapiro (Stanford University) for a 55-year career in biomedical science – honored for fundamental discoveries in bacterial genetics; for founding Stanford’s distinguished Department of Developmental Biology; and for exemplary leadership at the national level. In pioneering studies of the bacterium Caulobacter crescentus, Shapiro dissected the mechanism by which a dividing cell can produce two progeny with different developmental fates, generating one of the best understood systems of asymmetric cell division. In addition to her research and academic leadership at Stanford, she served as a key advisor to President Clinton and his Cabinet on bioterrorism threats and defense, antibiotic resistance, and emerging infectious diseases. She continued this advisory role at the Office of Homeland Security in the George W. Bush presidency. Her influence extends through her service on the Scientific Advisory Boards of Harvard University, Whitehead Institute/Massachusetts General Hospital, and the Pasteur Institute. With Steve Benkovic, she discovered a new class of boron-containing compounds. Together they co-founded two companies that are developing an antifungal drug for infections of the nail and nailbed, a topical PDE4 inhibitor for atopic dermatitis, and a boron-containing compound to combat banana fungal disease.

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2026 Lasker Medical Research Awards Jury

Joseph L. Goldstein, Jury Chair ● Michael S. Brown ● Stephen J. Elledge ● Jeffrey M. Friedman ● Michael N. Hall ● David Julius ● William G. Kaelin, Jr. ● Robert J. Lefkowitz ● Richard Lifton ● Dan R. Littman ● Richard M. Locksley ● Diane Mathis ● Jeremy Nathans ● Erin O’Shea ● Peter Ratcliffe ● James Rothman ● Charles Sawyers ● Bruce Stillman ● Craig B. Thompson ● Harold Varmus ● Leslie B. Vosshall ● Xiaowei Zhuang

2026 Lasker~Bloomberg Public Service Award Jury

Margaret A. Hamburg, Jury Chair ● Katalin Karikó ● Mary-Claire King ● Sherry Lansing ● Elizabeth Nabel ● Claire Pomeroy ● Elias Zerhouni

2026 Lasker Awards Ceremony