Joseph Stella (1880-1946), Italian-born American futurist painter, is best known for his dynamic interpretations of Brooklyn Bridge at night, with its dazzling automobile headlights and soaring crystalline forms.

Joseph Stella was born in Muro Lucano, a mountain village close to Naples. When he was 19, he went to America to study medicine and pharmacology. In 1897 he began to paint and enrolled as a full-time student at the Art Students League and then at the New York School of Art, studying under William Merritt Chase. Stella's earliest painting emulates the manner of Chase, who admired Diego Velázquez, Édouard Manet, and Frans Hals and interpreted American subjects with breadth of handling and richness of palette. Stella made several drawings of immigrants and miners for the magazines Outlook and Survey.

By 1910 Stella was back in Europe. He spent about a year in Italy and then went to Paris, where...