Joseph Stella was an Italian-born

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 Futurist

Futurism (art)

Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century. It emphasized and glorified themes associated with contemporary concepts of the future, including speed, technology, youth and violence, and objects such as the car, the airplane and the industrial city...

 painter best known for his depictions of industrial

Industrialisation

Industrialization is the process of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial one...

 America. He is associated with the American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 Precisionism

Precisionism

Precisionism, also known as Cubist Realism, was an artistic movement that emerged in the United States after World War I and was at its height during the inter-War period...

 movement of the 1910s-1940s.
He was born in Muro Lucano, Italy but came to New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 in 1896. He studied at the Art Students League of New York

Art Students League of New York

The Art Students League of New York is an art school located on West 57th Street in New York City. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists, and has maintained for over 130 years a tradition of offering reasonably priced classes on a...

 under William Merritt Chase

William Merritt Chase

William Merritt Chase was an American painter known as an exponent of Impressionism and as a teacher. He is also responsible for establishing the Chase School, which later would become Parsons The New School for Design.- Early life and training :He was born in Williamsburg , Indiana, to the family...

. His first paintings are Rembrandtesque depictions of city slum life. In 1908, he was commissioned for a series on industrial Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...

 later published in The Pittsburgh Survey

The Pittsburgh Survey

The Pittsburgh Survey was a pioneering sociological study of the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA funded by the Russell Sage Foundation of New York. It is widely considered a landmark of the Progressive Era reform movement....

.

It was his return to Europe in 1909, and his first contact with modernism

Modernism

Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...

, that would truly mold his distinctive personal style.

Returning to New York in 1913, he painted Battle of Lights, Mardi Gras, Coney Island, which is one of the earliest American Futurist works.