American artist Frank Stella died at the age of 87.
He is a dominant figure in post-war American art, especially with his early minimalist works.
Stella died at his home in Manhattan of lymphoma (a type of cancer that affects blood cells called lymphocytes), the New York Times reported.
Early in her career, Stella painted simple paintings, some of which did not aim to offer viewers visual stimulation and were sparse in terms of color - a stark contrast to the abstract expressionism of the era.
His early works include a series of "Pin Stripe" paintings - large works of precise black lines on a blank canvas - which caused a sensation in the US art world.
Stella was recognized as a major American artist before the age of 25, and his career spanned six decades.
He resists critics' demands to interpret his works with the oft-quoted phrase, "What you see is what you see."
Later, Stella explored color and form, sometimes making paintings with irregular shapes and geometric patterns.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Stella turned increasingly to three-dimensional works, incorporating aluminum and fiberglass, and finally to sculptures for public spaces.
The Museum of Modern Art in New York offered retrospectives of his work in 1970 and again in 1987. /BGNES
