A cat eats a goat. A dog bites the cat. A stick beats the dog. A fire burns the stick. And so on. This is a sequence from “Had Gadya,” a traditional Passover song and the subject of a series of prints made by Frank Stella between 1982 and 1984. Stella grew up Catholic in Massachusetts but was always interested in the history of the Jewish people. While visiting Tel Aviv in 1981, he discovered a series of lithographs that illustrated the verses of “Had Gadya”; they were the work of El Lissitzky, a Russian Jewish artist who took part in the early–20th–century movements of Suprematism and Constructivism. Inspired by El Lissitzky, Stella made his own series of 12 prints—one for each stanza of the song, plus an introduction and conclusion. Both Stella and El Lissitzky’s interpretations of the classic tale, with its cyclical violence and divine intervention, are on display in Los Angeles. —Jeanne Malle