The American Futurist painter Joseph Stella once wished “that my every working day might begin and end, as a good omen, with the light, gay painting of a flower.” Stella (1877–1946) is known for his energized paintings of industrial America—high-suspension, geometric visions of a modern city bound in cables and grates. But he had a more pastoral side and occasionally turned to the subject of nature, which saw him working in softer, calmer colors and curvaceous shapes. Norton presents the first major museum exhibition to focus exclusively on Stella’s paintings of flowers, plantlife, and birds. Combining realism and fantasy, Stella offers a uniquely stylized depiction of the natural world. —Clara Molot