Ellsworth Kelly
Encyclopedia
Ellsworth Kelly is an American
painter and sculptor associated with Hard-edge painting
, Color Field
painting and the Minimalist
school. His works demonstrate unassuming techniques emphasizing the simplicity of form found similar to the work of John McLaughlin
. Kelly often employs bright colors to enhance his works. Ellsworth Kelly lives and works in Spencertown, New York.
. His father was an insurance company executive of Scottish-Irish and German descent. His mother was a former schoolteacher of Welsh and Pennsylvania-German stock. His family moved from Newburgh, New York, to New Jersey
shortly after he was born. Kelly remembers his mother moving his family around each year to a different house. They lived in many places in New Jersey both in and around the Hackensack
area. Many of Kelly’s memories are centered on the time they lived in Oradell, New Jersey
a town of nearly 7,500 people at the time. They lived near the Oradell Reservoir
where his paternal grandmother Rosenlieb introduced him to bird watching at the age of eight or nine. This introduction to bird watching enabled Kelly to train his eye and develop his appreciation for the physical reality of the world by focusing in on nature’s shapes. This is where he developed his passion for form and color. He continued to further expand his knowledge on this particular passion by studying the works of Louis Agassiz Fuertes
and John James Audubon
. Audubon had a particularly strong influence on Kelly’s work throughout his career. Author E.C. Goossen speculates that the two and three-color paintings (such as Three Panels: Red Yellow Blue, I 1963) for which Kelly is so well known can be traced to his bird watching, and his acquaintance with the two and three-color birds he so frequently watched at such an early age.
Kelly has said he was constantly alone as a young boy and became somewhat of a "loner". He was also afflicted by a slight stutter that persisted into his teenage years.
Teacher's College, at which the American modernist painter Arthur Wesley Dow
had taught. His parents were reluctant to support Kelly's training in the arts, but a school teacher offered the necessary encouragement. As his parents would only fund technical study, Kelly was educated first at the Pratt Institute
in Brooklyn
, which he attended from 1941 to 1943, until he was inducted into the Army on New Year’s Day, 1943. Upon his discharge at the end of World War II, Kelly took advantage of the generous G.I. Bill education provisions to study from 1946 to 1947 at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
, where he haunted the collections of that city's museums, and then at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts
in Paris. There he attended classes infrequently, but again immersed himself in the rich artistic resources of the city. While studying in Boston in 1948, Kelly listened to a lecture by Max Beckmann
on Paul Cézanne
. It was in Paris
that Kelly established his aesthetic.
service in 1943 he requested to be assigned to the 603rd Engineers Camouflage Battalion, which was normal for artists at the time to do. He was inducted at Fort Dix, New Jersey
and waited there several weeks for transfer orders that never came. He was then sent off to Camp Hale, Colorado where he trained with mountain ski troops. He had never skied before. His transfer came in six to eight weeks later and he went to Fort Meade, Maryland
. During World War II
, he served, alongside other artists and designers, in a deception unit known as The Ghost Army
. The Ghost soldiers used inflatable tanks, trucks, and other elements of subterfuge to mislead the Axis
forces about the direction and disposition of Allied forces. He had a lot of exposure to military camouflage
during the time he served. His exposure to the visual art of camouflage can be seen as part of his basic training. Kelly served with the unit from 1943 until the end of the European phase of the war.
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Kelly decided to return to America in 1954 after being abroad for six years. His decision to venture back into the New York
art scene was sparked after reading a review of an Ad Reinhardt
exhibit, to which he felt his work related. Upon his return to New York he found the art world “very tough.” The acceptance of his art was anything but rapid. Although Kelly can now be considered an essential innovator and contributor to the American art movement, he was not always seen in such a positive light. It was hard for many to find the connection between Kelly’s art and the dominant stylistic trends. In May 1956 Kelly had his first New York exhibition at Betty Parsons’
Gallery. The art he showed in this exhibit was considered by many in the art world to have more of a European flair. He showed at Betty Parsons’ Gallery in the fall of 1957. He had three pieces, Atlantic, Bar, and Painting in Three Panels selected and shown for the Whitney Museum of American Art
's show "Young America 1957.” His pieces were considered radically different from the other twenty-nine artists’ work. Painting in Three Panels, for example, was particularly noted and questioned for the idea of having more than one canvas used to create one piece was unheard of at this time. Critic Michael Plante commented on this use of multiple-panels by noting that more often than not Kelly’s multiple-panel pieces were cramped in accordance to the installations restrictions, which resulted in a downplay of the interaction between the pieces and the architecture of the room.
Today, he works in a studio designed by the architect Richard Gluckman
.
Kelly's discovery in 1952 of Monet’s late work infused him with a new freedom of painterly expression: he began working in extremely large formats and explored the concepts of seriality and monochrome paintings. As a painter he worked from then on in an exclusively abstract mode. By the late 1950s his painting stressed shape and planar masses (often assuming non-rectilinear formats). His work of this period also provided a useful bridge from the vanguard American geometric abstraction of the 1930s and early 1940s to the Minimalism and reductive art of the mid-1960s and 1970s. Kelly's relief painting Blue Tablet (1962), for example, was included in the seminal exhibition "Toward a New Abstraction" at the Jewish Museum
in 1963. During the 1960s he started working with irregularly angled canvases, and in the 1970s he added curved shapes to his repertoire. A larger series of twelve works Kelly started in 1972 and did not complete until 1983, "Gray" was originally conceived as an anti-war statement and is drained of color. In 1979 he began again to employ curves in two-colour paintings made of separate panels. In his recent painting, Kelly has distilled his palette and introduced forms never before seen in his work. In each work, he starts with a rectangular canvas that he carefully paints with many coats of white paint; a shaped canvas, mostly painted black, is placed on top.
Although the source of the piece is usually unidentifiable to the viewer's eye, there is almost always a source behind the forms he creates. Kelly creates his pieces using a succession of ideas on various forms. He may start with a drawing, enhance the drawing to create a print, take the print and create a freestanding piece, which is then made into a sculpture. Kelly’s sculptures are meant to be entirely simple and can been viewed quickly, often only in one glance. The viewer observes smooth, flat surfaces that are secluded from the space that surrounds them. This sense of flatness and minimalism make it hard to tell the difference between the foreground and background. Kelly's Blue Disc was included in the seminal 1966 exhibit at the Jewish Museum in New York entitled, "Primary Structures" alongside many much younger artists just beginning to work with minimal forms.
nor the outcome of a dialogue with his contemporaries.” Many of his paintings consist of a single (usually bright) color, with some canvases being of irregular shape, sometimes called "shaped canvas
es." The quality of line seen in his paintings and in the form of his shaped canvases is very subtle, and implies perfection. This is demonstrated in his piece Block Island Study 1959.
While serving time in the army, Kelly was exposed to and influenced by the camouflage
with which his specific battalion worked. This close contact helped enlighten him on the use of form and shadow as well as the construction and deconstruction of the visible. It was a basic part of Kelly’s early education as an artist. Ralph Coburn, a friend of Kelly’s from Boston
, introduced the technique of automatic drawing to him while he was visiting Kelly in Paris
. Kelly embraced this technique of arriving at an image without looking at the sheet of paper upon which the image is drawn. These techniques helped Kelly in loosening his particular drawing style and broaden his acceptance of what he believed to be art. Kelly’s illness and coexistent depression may possibly be related to his use of black and white during his last year in Paris.
The influence of Kelly’s admiration for Henri Matisse
and Pablo Picasso
are apparent in his work. His ability to view things in various ways and work in different mediums is in thanks to them.
Piet Mondrian
influences the different forms he uses in both his paintings and sculptures for they are nonobjective.
Kelly was first influenced by the art and architecture of the Romanesque
and Byzantine
eras while he was studying in Paris.
His introduction to Surrealism
and Neo-Plasticism influenced his work and caused him to test the abstraction of geometric forms.
's ground-breaking exhibition, Sixteen Americans. Kelly was invited to show at the São Paulo Biennial in 1961. His work was later included in the Documenta
in 1977, 1977, and 1991. A room of his paintings was included in the 2007 Venice Biennale
.
Kelly’s first retrospective was held at the Museum of Modern Art in 1973. His work has since been recognized in numerous retrospective exhibitions, including a sculpture exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art
, New York, in 1982; an exhibition of works on paper and a show of his print works that traveled extensively in the United States and Canada from 1987–88; and a career retrospective in 1996 organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
, New York, which traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Art
in Los Angeles, the Tate Gallery
in London, and the Haus der Kunst
in Munich. Since then, solo exhibitions of Kelly’s work have been mounted at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
in New York (1998), Fogg Art Museum
in Cambridge (1999), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
(1988/2002), Philadelphia Museum of Art
(2007), and Museum of Modern Art in New York (2007). In 1993, the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume
in Paris mounted the exhibition "Ellsworth Kelly: The French Years, 1948-54" about the artist's relationship with the city, which travelled to the National Gallery of Art
, Washington D.C.; in 2008, the Musée d'Orsay
honored Kelly with the exhibition "Correspondences: Paul Cézanne Ellsworth Kelly".
Kelly is represented by Matthew Marks Gallery
, New York. From 1964 he produced prints and editioned sculptures at Gemini G.E.L.
in Los Angeles and Tyler Graphics Ltd
near New York City.
headquarters in Paris in 1969; Curve XXII (I Will) at Lincoln Park
in Chicago in 1981; the Houston Triptych, vertical bronze planes mounted on a tall concrete at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in 1986; Totem (1987), a sculpture for the Parc de la Creueta del Coll
, Barcelona; the Dallas Panels (Blue Green Black Red) (1989) for the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center
, Dallas; a two-part memorial for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
, Washington, D.C., in 1993; and large-scale panels for the Deutscher Bundestag, Berlin, in 1998. For the John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse
(designed by Henry N. Cobb
) in Boston he designed the The Boston Panels, 21 brilliantly colored aluminum panels installed in the central rotunda as a single work throughout the building.
Kelly's two-paneled Blue Black (2001), 28 feet tall and made of painted honeycomb aluminum, was commissioned for the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, St. Louis, and the large-scale bronze Untitled (2005) was commissioned specifically for the courtyard of the Phillips Collection
. In 2005, Kelly was commissioned with the only site-specific work for the Modern wing of the Art Institute of Chicago
by Renzo Piano
. He created White Curve, the largest wall sculpture he has ever made, which is on display since 2009.
, Madrid, and Tate Modern
, London. In 1999, the San Francisco Museum of Art announced that it had bought 22 works, paintings, wall reliefs and sculptures, by Ellsworth Kelly. They have been valued at more than $20 million. In 2003, the Menil Collection
received Kelly's Tablet, 188 framed works on paper, including sketches, working drawings and collages.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
painter and sculptor associated with Hard-edge painting
Hard-edge painting
Hard-edge painting is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas are often of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstraction, Op Art, Post-painterly Abstraction, and Color Field painting.-History of the term:The term was...
, Color Field
Color Field
Color Field painting is a style of abstract painting that emerged in New York City during the 1940s and 1950s. It was inspired by European modernism and closely related to Abstract Expressionism, while many of its notable early proponents were among the pioneering Abstract Expressionists...
painting and the Minimalist
Minimalism
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
school. His works demonstrate unassuming techniques emphasizing the simplicity of form found similar to the work of John McLaughlin
John McLaughlin (artist)
John Dwyer McLaughlin was an American abstract painter. Based primarily in California, he was a pioneer in minimalist and hard-edge painting.-Life:...
. Kelly often employs bright colors to enhance his works. Ellsworth Kelly lives and works in Spencertown, New York.
Childhood
Kelly was born the second son of three to Allan Howe Kelly and Florence Bithens Kelly in Newburgh, New York, a town approximately 60 miles north of New York CityNew 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...
. His father was an insurance company executive of Scottish-Irish and German descent. His mother was a former schoolteacher of Welsh and Pennsylvania-German stock. His family moved from Newburgh, New York, to New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
shortly after he was born. Kelly remembers his mother moving his family around each year to a different house. They lived in many places in New Jersey both in and around the Hackensack
Hackensack, New Jersey
Hackensack is a city in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States and the county seat of Bergen County. Although informally called Hackensack, it was officially named New Barbadoes Township until 1921. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city population was 43,010....
area. Many of Kelly’s memories are centered on the time they lived in Oradell, New Jersey
Oradell, New Jersey
Oradell is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. At the 2010 United States Census, the borough population was 7,978. The borough's territory includes a dam on the Hackensack River that forms the Oradell Reservoir...
a town of nearly 7,500 people at the time. They lived near the Oradell Reservoir
Oradell Reservoir
The Oradell Reservoir was formed by the Oradell Reservoir Dam placed on the Hackensack River in Bergen County, New Jersey, completed in 1923. The Oradell Reservoir Dam is located in Oradell, but the reservoir also straddles the borders of Haworth, Emerson, Closter and Harrington Park.The reservoir...
where his paternal grandmother Rosenlieb introduced him to bird watching at the age of eight or nine. This introduction to bird watching enabled Kelly to train his eye and develop his appreciation for the physical reality of the world by focusing in on nature’s shapes. This is where he developed his passion for form and color. He continued to further expand his knowledge on this particular passion by studying the works of Louis Agassiz Fuertes
Louis Agassiz Fuertes
Louis Agassiz Fuertes was an American ornithologist, illustrator and artist.-Biography:Fuertes was the son of Estevan and Mary Stone Perry Fuertes....
and John James Audubon
John James Audubon
John James Audubon was a French-American ornithologist, naturalist, and painter. He was notable for his expansive studies to document all types of American birds and for his detailed illustrations that depicted the birds in their natural habitats...
. Audubon had a particularly strong influence on Kelly’s work throughout his career. Author E.C. Goossen speculates that the two and three-color paintings (such as Three Panels: Red Yellow Blue, I 1963) for which Kelly is so well known can be traced to his bird watching, and his acquaintance with the two and three-color birds he so frequently watched at such an early age.
Kelly has said he was constantly alone as a young boy and became somewhat of a "loner". He was also afflicted by a slight stutter that persisted into his teenage years.
Education
Kelly’s schooling from the elementary to the high school level followed the conventional public school curriculum, which included art classes that stressed materials and sought to develop the "artistic imagination". This curriculum was typical of the broader trend in schooling that had emerged from the Progressive education theories promulgated by the Columbia UniversityColumbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
Teacher's College, at which the American modernist painter Arthur Wesley Dow
Arthur Wesley Dow
Arthur Wesley Dow was an American painter, printmaker, photographer, and influential arts educator....
had taught. His parents were reluctant to support Kelly's training in the arts, but a school teacher offered the necessary encouragement. As his parents would only fund technical study, Kelly was educated first at the Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute is a private art college in New York City located in Brooklyn, New York, with satellite campuses in Manhattan and Utica. Pratt is one of the leading undergraduate art schools in the United States and offers programs in Architecture, Graphic Design, History of Art and Design,...
in Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
, which he attended from 1941 to 1943, until he was inducted into the Army on New Year’s Day, 1943. Upon his discharge at the end of World War II, Kelly took advantage of the generous G.I. Bill education provisions to study from 1946 to 1947 at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is an undergraduate and graduate college located in Boston, Massachusetts, dedicated to the visual arts. It is affiliated with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs in partnership with Tufts University...
, where he haunted the collections of that city's museums, and then at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts
École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts
The École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-arts is the distinguished National School of Fine Arts in Paris, France.The École des Beaux-arts is made up of a vast complex of buildings located at 14 rue Bonaparte, between the quai Malaquais and the rue Bonaparte, in the heart of Saint-Germain-des-Près,...
in Paris. There he attended classes infrequently, but again immersed himself in the rich artistic resources of the city. While studying in Boston in 1948, Kelly listened to a lecture by Max Beckmann
Max Beckmann
Max Beckmann was a German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor, and writer. Although he is classified as an Expressionist artist, he rejected both the term and the movement...
on Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th...
. It was in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
that Kelly established his aesthetic.
Military
Upon entering U.S militaryMilitary
A military is an organization authorized by its greater society to use lethal force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or perceived threats. The military may have additional functions of use to its greater society, such as advancing a political agenda e.g...
service in 1943 he requested to be assigned to the 603rd Engineers Camouflage Battalion, which was normal for artists at the time to do. He was inducted at Fort Dix, New Jersey
Fort Dix, New Jersey
JB MDL Dix , better known as Fort Dix, is a United States Army base located approximately south-southeast of Trenton, New Jersey. Dix is under the jurisdiction of the United States Army Reserve Command...
and waited there several weeks for transfer orders that never came. He was then sent off to Camp Hale, Colorado where he trained with mountain ski troops. He had never skied before. His transfer came in six to eight weeks later and he went to Fort Meade, Maryland
Fort Meade, Maryland
Fort Meade is a census-designated place in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, United States. The population was 9,882 at the 2000 census. It is the home to the National Security Agency, which is located on the US Army post Fort George G...
. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, he served, alongside other artists and designers, in a deception unit known as The Ghost Army
The Ghost Army
The Ghost Army was a United States Army tactical deception unit during World War II officially known as the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops. The 1,100-man unit was given a unique mission within the Army to impersonate other U.S. Army units to deceive the enemy...
. The Ghost soldiers used inflatable tanks, trucks, and other elements of subterfuge to mislead the Axis
Axis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...
forces about the direction and disposition of Allied forces. He had a lot of exposure to military camouflage
Camouflage
Camouflage is a method of concealment that allows an otherwise visible animal, military vehicle, or other object to remain unnoticed, by blending with its environment. Examples include a leopard's spotted coat, the battledress of a modern soldier and a leaf-mimic butterfly...
during the time he served. His exposure to the visual art of camouflage can be seen as part of his basic training. Kelly served with the unit from 1943 until the end of the European phase of the war.
Career
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
art scene was sparked after reading a review of an Ad Reinhardt
Ad Reinhardt
Adolph Frederick Reinhardt was an Abstract painter active in New York beginning in the 1930s and continuing through the 1960s. He was a member of the American Abstract Artists and was a part of the movement centered around the Betty Parsons Gallery that became known as Abstract Expressionism...
exhibit, to which he felt his work related. Upon his return to New York he found the art world “very tough.” The acceptance of his art was anything but rapid. Although Kelly can now be considered an essential innovator and contributor to the American art movement, he was not always seen in such a positive light. It was hard for many to find the connection between Kelly’s art and the dominant stylistic trends. In May 1956 Kelly had his first New York exhibition at Betty Parsons’
Betty Parsons
Betty Parsons, born Betty Bierne Pierson, was an American artist and art dealer known for her early promotion of Abstract Expressionism. She was known as "the den mother of Abstract Expressionism"...
Gallery. The art he showed in this exhibit was considered by many in the art world to have more of a European flair. He showed at Betty Parsons’ Gallery in the fall of 1957. He had three pieces, Atlantic, Bar, and Painting in Three Panels selected and shown for the Whitney Museum of American Art
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
's show "Young America 1957.” His pieces were considered radically different from the other twenty-nine artists’ work. Painting in Three Panels, for example, was particularly noted and questioned for the idea of having more than one canvas used to create one piece was unheard of at this time. Critic Michael Plante commented on this use of multiple-panels by noting that more often than not Kelly’s multiple-panel pieces were cramped in accordance to the installations restrictions, which resulted in a downplay of the interaction between the pieces and the architecture of the room.
Today, he works in a studio designed by the architect Richard Gluckman
Gluckman Mayner Architects
Gluckman Mayner Architects is an architecture firm located in New York City with Richard Gluckman and David Mayner in partnership since 1998. The architects are known for minimalist design, evident in five pioneering art galleries that moved into the Chelsea gallery district from the SoHo...
.
Painting
In Paris, Kelly continued to paint the figure, but by May 1949 he had made his first abstract paintings. Observing how light fragmented on the surface of water, he painted Seine (1950), made of black and white rectangles arranged by chance. In 1952 he started a series of eight collages titled Spectrum Colors Arranged by Chance I to VIII. Numbered slips of paper each referred to a colour, one of eighteen different hues to be placed on a grid 40 inches by 40 inches. Each of the eight collages used a different process.Kelly's discovery in 1952 of Monet’s late work infused him with a new freedom of painterly expression: he began working in extremely large formats and explored the concepts of seriality and monochrome paintings. As a painter he worked from then on in an exclusively abstract mode. By the late 1950s his painting stressed shape and planar masses (often assuming non-rectilinear formats). His work of this period also provided a useful bridge from the vanguard American geometric abstraction of the 1930s and early 1940s to the Minimalism and reductive art of the mid-1960s and 1970s. Kelly's relief painting Blue Tablet (1962), for example, was included in the seminal exhibition "Toward a New Abstraction" at the Jewish Museum
Jewish Museum (New York)
The Jewish Museum of New York, an art museum and repository of cultural artifacts, is the leading Jewish museum in the United States. With over 26,000 objects, it contains the largest collection of art and Jewish culture outside of museums in Israel. The museum is housed at 1109 Fifth Avenue, in...
in 1963. During the 1960s he started working with irregularly angled canvases, and in the 1970s he added curved shapes to his repertoire. A larger series of twelve works Kelly started in 1972 and did not complete until 1983, "Gray" was originally conceived as an anti-war statement and is drained of color. In 1979 he began again to employ curves in two-colour paintings made of separate panels. In his recent painting, Kelly has distilled his palette and introduced forms never before seen in his work. In each work, he starts with a rectangular canvas that he carefully paints with many coats of white paint; a shaped canvas, mostly painted black, is placed on top.
Lithographs and drawings
Kelly has been making drawings of plants and flowers since the late 1940s and continues to do so today. Kelly first experimented with reductive geometry in paint and wood in 1949. His initial series of 28 transfer lithographs, entitled "Suite of Plant Lithographs" (1964–66), marked the beginning of a corpus that would grow to 72 prints and countless drawings of foliage. His Purple/Red/Gray/Orange (1988), at eighteen feet in length, may be the largest single-sheet lithograph ever made.Sculpture
Although Kelly may be better known for his paintings, he has also pursued sculpture throughout his career. In 1958, Kelly conceived one of his first wood sculptures, Concorde Relief I (1958), a modestly scaled wall relief in elm, which explores the visual play and balance between two rectangular forms layered on top of each other, the uppermost with its top-right and lower-left corners removed. He has made 30 sculptures in wood throughout his career. From 1959 onwards, he created freestanding folded sculptures. In 1973 he began regularly making large-scale outdoor sculpture, in a variety of materials including aluminum, bronze, and weathering steel. and often in totem-like configurations such as Curve XXIII (1981). While the totemic forms his freestanding sculptures can measure up to 15 feet tall, his wall reliefs can span more than 14 feet wide. Kelly’s sculpture “is founded on its adherence to absolute simplicity and clarity of form.”Although the source of the piece is usually unidentifiable to the viewer's eye, there is almost always a source behind the forms he creates. Kelly creates his pieces using a succession of ideas on various forms. He may start with a drawing, enhance the drawing to create a print, take the print and create a freestanding piece, which is then made into a sculpture. Kelly’s sculptures are meant to be entirely simple and can been viewed quickly, often only in one glance. The viewer observes smooth, flat surfaces that are secluded from the space that surrounds them. This sense of flatness and minimalism make it hard to tell the difference between the foreground and background. Kelly's Blue Disc was included in the seminal 1966 exhibit at the Jewish Museum in New York entitled, "Primary Structures" alongside many much younger artists just beginning to work with minimal forms.
Style
William Rubin noted that “Kelly’s development had been resolutely inner-directed: neither a reaction to Abstract ExpressionismAbstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
nor the outcome of a dialogue with his contemporaries.” Many of his paintings consist of a single (usually bright) color, with some canvases being of irregular shape, sometimes called "shaped canvas
Shaped canvas
Shaped canvases are paintings that depart from the normal flat, rectangular configuration. Canvases may be shaped by altering their outline, while retaining their flatness. An ancient, traditional example is the tondo, a painting on a round canvas: Raphael, as well as some other Renaissance...
es." The quality of line seen in his paintings and in the form of his shaped canvases is very subtle, and implies perfection. This is demonstrated in his piece Block Island Study 1959.
Influences
Kelly’s background in the military has been suggested as a source of the seriousness of his works.While serving time in the army, Kelly was exposed to and influenced by the camouflage
Camouflage
Camouflage is a method of concealment that allows an otherwise visible animal, military vehicle, or other object to remain unnoticed, by blending with its environment. Examples include a leopard's spotted coat, the battledress of a modern soldier and a leaf-mimic butterfly...
with which his specific battalion worked. This close contact helped enlighten him on the use of form and shadow as well as the construction and deconstruction of the visible. It was a basic part of Kelly’s early education as an artist. Ralph Coburn, a friend of Kelly’s from Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, introduced the technique of automatic drawing to him while he was visiting Kelly in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. Kelly embraced this technique of arriving at an image without looking at the sheet of paper upon which the image is drawn. These techniques helped Kelly in loosening his particular drawing style and broaden his acceptance of what he believed to be art. Kelly’s illness and coexistent depression may possibly be related to his use of black and white during his last year in Paris.
The influence of Kelly’s admiration for Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
and Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
are apparent in his work. His ability to view things in various ways and work in different mediums is in thanks to them.
Piet Mondrian
Piet Mondrian
Pieter Cornelis "Piet" Mondriaan, after 1906 Mondrian , was a Dutch painter.He was an important contributor to the De Stijl art movement and group, which was founded by Theo van Doesburg. He evolved a non-representational form which he termed Neo-Plasticism...
influences the different forms he uses in both his paintings and sculptures for they are nonobjective.
Kelly was first influenced by the art and architecture of the Romanesque
Romanesque art
Romanesque art refers to the art of Western Europe from approximately 1000 AD to the rise of the Gothic style in the 13th century, or later, depending on region. The preceding period is increasingly known as the Pre-Romanesque...
and Byzantine
Byzantine
Byzantine usually refers to the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.Byzantine may also refer to:* A citizen of the Byzantine Empire, or native Greek during the Middle Ages...
eras while he was studying in Paris.
His introduction to Surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
and Neo-Plasticism influenced his work and caused him to test the abstraction of geometric forms.
Artworks (selection)
- Window, Museum of Modern Art, Paris, 1949, oil and wood on canvas, Private Collection
- Spectrum of Colors Arranged by Chance, 1951–53, oil on wood, San Francisco Museum of Modern ArtSan Francisco Museum of Modern ArtThe San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th century art...
- Black Ripe, 1955, oil on canvas, Collection of Harry W. and Mary Margaret Anderson
- Sculpture for a Large Wall, 1957, anodized aluminum, Museum of Modern ArtMuseum of Modern ArtThe Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
, New YorkNew YorkNew York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east... - Red Blue Green, 1963, oil on canvas, Museum of Contemporary ArtMuseum of Contemporary Art San DiegoThe Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego , in San Diego, California, USA, is an art museum focused on the collection, preservation, exhibition, and interpretation of works of art from 1950 to the present.-History:...
, San Diego - Curve IX, 1974, polished aluminum, Private Collection
- Houston Triptych, 1986, bronze, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
- Three Panels: Orange, Dark Gray, Green, 1986, oil on canvas, Museum of Modern ArtMuseum of Modern ArtThe Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
, New YorkNew YorkNew York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east... - Red Curves, 1996, oil on canvas, Private Collection
- High Yellow, 1960, oil on canvas, Blanton Museum of ArtBlanton Museum of ArtThe Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art is the art museum and research center of the University of Texas at Austin. Formerly under the College of Fine Arts, the museum director now reports to the University's...
in Austin, TX
Exhibitions
Kelly's first solo exhibition was held at the Galerie Arnaud, Paris, in 1951. In 1957, he completed his first public commission, sculptural works for the lobby of the Penn Center in Philadelphia. In 1959 he was included in the Museum of Modern ArtMuseum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
's ground-breaking exhibition, Sixteen Americans. Kelly was invited to show at the São Paulo Biennial in 1961. His work was later included in the Documenta
Documenta
documenta is an exhibition of modern and contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany. It was founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955 as part of the Bundesgartenschau which took place in Kassel at that time...
in 1977, 1977, and 1991. A room of his paintings was included in the 2007 Venice Biennale
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...
.
Kelly’s first retrospective was held at the Museum of Modern Art in 1973. His work has since been recognized in numerous retrospective exhibitions, including a sculpture exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
, New York, in 1982; an exhibition of works on paper and a show of his print works that traveled extensively in the United States and Canada from 1987–88; and a career retrospective in 1996 organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is a well-known museum located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States. It is the permanent home to a renowned collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions...
, New York, which traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Art
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles is a contemporary art museum with three locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near Walt Disney Concert Hall...
in Los Angeles, the Tate Gallery
Tate Gallery
The Tate is an institution that houses the United Kingdom's national collection of British Art, and International Modern and Contemporary Art...
in London, and the Haus der Kunst
Haus der Kunst
The Haus der Kunst is an art museum in Munich, Germany. It is located at Prinzregentenstrasse 1 at the southern edge of the Englischer Garten, Munich's largest park.-History:...
in Munich. Since then, solo exhibitions of Kelly’s work have been mounted at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
in New York (1998), Fogg Art Museum
Fogg Art Museum
The Fogg Museum, opened to the public in 1896, is the oldest of Harvard University's art museums. The Fogg joins the Busch-Reisinger Museum and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum as part of the Harvard Art Museums....
in Cambridge (1999), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th century art...
(1988/2002), Philadelphia Museum of Art
Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Philadelphia Museum of Art is among the largest art museums in the United States. It is located at the west end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. The Museum was established in 1876 in conjunction with the Centennial Exposition of the same year...
(2007), and Museum of Modern Art in New York (2007). In 1993, the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume
Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume
The Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume is a museum of contemporary art in the north-west corner of the Tuileries Gardens in Paris.The building was constructed in 1861 during the reign of Napoleon III...
in Paris mounted the exhibition "Ellsworth Kelly: The French Years, 1948-54" about the artist's relationship with the city, which travelled to the National Gallery of Art
National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden is a national art museum, located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, in Washington, DC...
, Washington D.C.; in 2008, the Musée d'Orsay
Musée d'Orsay
The Musée d'Orsay is a museum in Paris, France, on the left bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, an impressive Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1915, including paintings, sculptures, furniture,...
honored Kelly with the exhibition "Correspondences: Paul Cézanne Ellsworth Kelly".
Kelly is represented by Matthew Marks Gallery
Matthew Marks Gallery
Matthew Marks is an art gallery located in the New York City neighborhood of Chelsea. Founded in the early 1990s by Matthew Marks, it specializes in modern and contemporary art in a variety of media: including painting, sculpture, photography, installation art, film, and drawings and prints...
, New York. From 1964 he produced prints and editioned sculptures at Gemini G.E.L.
Gemini G.E.L.
Gemini G.E.L. is an artists‘ workshop and publisher of limited edition prints and sculptures in Los Angeles, CA.Gemini has collaborated with artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Isamu Noguchi, Robert Motherwell, Roy Lichtenstein, Willem de Kooning, Claes Oldenburg, and Ed Ruscha, among many others,...
in Los Angeles and Tyler Graphics Ltd
Kenneth E. Tyler
Kenneth E. Tyler is a master printer, publisher, arts educator and a prominent figure in the American post-war revival of fine art, limited edition printmaking. Tyler established leading print workshops and publishing houses on both West and East coasts of the United States and made several...
near New York City.
Selected solo exhibitions
- 1951 Kelly Peintures et reliefsGalerie Arnaud, Paris
- 1956 Betty ParsonsBetty ParsonsBetty Parsons, born Betty Bierne Pierson, was an American artist and art dealer known for her early promotion of Abstract Expressionism. She was known as "the den mother of Abstract Expressionism"...
Gallery, New York - 1957 Betty ParsonsBetty ParsonsBetty Parsons, born Betty Bierne Pierson, was an American artist and art dealer known for her early promotion of Abstract Expressionism. She was known as "the den mother of Abstract Expressionism"...
Gallery, New York - 1957 Young America 1957, Whitney Museum of American ArtWhitney Museum of American ArtThe Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
, New York - 1973 Ellsworth Kelly, Museum of Modern ArtMuseum of Modern ArtThe Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
, New York - 1977 Ellsworth Kelly: Paintings, Leo Castelli Gallery, New York
- 1982 Ellsworth Kelly: Sculpture, Whitney Museum of American ArtWhitney Museum of American ArtThe Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
, New York - 1985 Ellsworth Kelly: White Panel II", High Museum of ArtHigh Museum of ArtThe High Museum of Art , located in Atlanta, is the leading art museum in the Southeastern United States and one of the most-visited art museums in the world. Located on Peachtree Street in Midtown, the city's arts district, the High is a division of the Woodruff Arts Center.-History:The Museum was...
, Atlanta - 1987 Ellsworth Kelly: Works on Paper, Fort Worth Art Museum, Fort Worth
- 1994 Ellsworth Kelly: Recent Paintings, Matthew Marks GalleryMatthew Marks GalleryMatthew Marks is an art gallery located in the New York City neighborhood of Chelsea. Founded in the early 1990s by Matthew Marks, it specializes in modern and contemporary art in a variety of media: including painting, sculpture, photography, installation art, film, and drawings and prints...
, New York - 1996 Ellsworth Kelly: A Retrospective, Guggenheim MuseumSolomon R. Guggenheim MuseumThe Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is a well-known museum located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States. It is the permanent home to a renowned collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions...
, New York - 2002 Ellsworth Kelly in San Francisco, San Francisco Museum of Modern ArtSan Francisco Museum of Modern ArtThe San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th century art...
, San Francisco - 2003 Ellsworth Kelly: The Self-Portrait Drawings, 1944-1992, Matthew Marks GalleryMatthew Marks GalleryMatthew Marks is an art gallery located in the New York City neighborhood of Chelsea. Founded in the early 1990s by Matthew Marks, it specializes in modern and contemporary art in a variety of media: including painting, sculpture, photography, installation art, film, and drawings and prints...
, New York - 2006 Ellsworth Kelly: New Paintings, Matthew Marks GalleryMatthew Marks GalleryMatthew Marks is an art gallery located in the New York City neighborhood of Chelsea. Founded in the early 1990s by Matthew Marks, it specializes in modern and contemporary art in a variety of media: including painting, sculpture, photography, installation art, film, and drawings and prints...
, New York - 2010 Ellsworth Kelly: Drawings 1954-1962, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern ArtMiddlesbrough Institute of Modern ArtMiddlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, or mima, is a contemporary art gallery based in the centre of Middlesbrough, England. The gallery was formally launched on Sunday 27 January 2007...
, MiddlesbroughMiddlesbroughMiddlesbrough is a large town situated on the south bank of the River Tees in north east England, that sits within the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire...
, United KingdomUnited KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
Public commissions
In 1957 Kelly was commissioned to produce a 65-foot-long wall sculpture for the Transportation Building at Penn Center in Philadelphia, his largest work to that date. Largely forgotten, the sculpture entitled Sculpture for a Large Wall (1957) was eventually dismantled. Kelly has since executed many public commissions, including Wright Curve (1966), a steel sculpture designed for permanent installation in the Guggenheim’s Peter B. Lewis Theater; a mural for the UNESCOUNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
headquarters in Paris in 1969; Curve XXII (I Will) at Lincoln Park
Lincoln Park
Lincoln Park is an urban park in Chicago, which gave its name to the Lincoln Park, Chicago community area.Lincoln Park may also refer to:-Urban parks:*Lincoln Park , California*Lincoln Park, San Francisco, California...
in Chicago in 1981; the Houston Triptych, vertical bronze planes mounted on a tall concrete at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in 1986; Totem (1987), a sculpture for the Parc de la Creueta del Coll
Parc de la Creueta del Coll
Parc de la Creueta del Coll is a park in the Gràcia and Horta districts of Barcelona, Spain. The park was created from an abandoned quarry as part of the nou urbanisme developments during the Olympics by architects Martorell and Mackay...
, Barcelona; the Dallas Panels (Blue Green Black Red) (1989) for the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center
Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center
The Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center is a concert hall located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas . Ranked one of the world's greatest orchestra halls, it was designed by architect I.M. Pei and acoustician Russell Johnson's Artec Consultants, Inc...
, Dallas; a two-part memorial for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust history...
, Washington, D.C., in 1993; and large-scale panels for the Deutscher Bundestag, Berlin, in 1998. For the John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse
John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse
The John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse is a federal courthouse for the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, located on Fan Pier on the Boston, Massachusetts waterfront...
(designed by Henry N. Cobb
Henry N. Cobb
Henry N. Cobb is an American architect and founding partner with I.M. Pei of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, an international architectural firm based in New York City....
) in Boston he designed the The Boston Panels, 21 brilliantly colored aluminum panels installed in the central rotunda as a single work throughout the building.
Kelly's two-paneled Blue Black (2001), 28 feet tall and made of painted honeycomb aluminum, was commissioned for the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, St. Louis, and the large-scale bronze Untitled (2005) was commissioned specifically for the courtyard of the Phillips Collection
Phillips Collection
The Phillips Collection is an art museum founded by Duncan Phillips in 1921 as the Phillips Memorial Gallery located in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Phillips was the grandson of James H...
. In 2005, Kelly was commissioned with the only site-specific work for the Modern wing of the Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, and "The Art Institute of Chicago" or "Chicago Art Institute" often refers to either...
by Renzo Piano
Renzo Piano
Renzo Piano is an Italian architect. He is the recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, AIA Gold Medal, Kyoto Prize and the Sonning Prize...
. He created White Curve, the largest wall sculpture he has ever made, which is on display since 2009.
Collections
Kelly's work is in many public collections, including those of the Centre Pompidou, Paris, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina SofíaMuseo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía is the official name of Spain's national museum of 20th century art . The museum was officially inaugurated on September 10, 1992 and is named for Queen Sofia of Spain...
, Madrid, and Tate Modern
Tate Modern
Tate Modern is a modern art gallery located in London, England. It is Britain's national gallery of international modern art and forms part of the Tate group . It is the most-visited modern art gallery in the world, with around 4.7 million visitors per year...
, London. In 1999, the San Francisco Museum of Art announced that it had bought 22 works, paintings, wall reliefs and sculptures, by Ellsworth Kelly. They have been valued at more than $20 million. In 2003, the Menil Collection
Menil Collection
The Menil Collection, located in Houston refers either to a museum that houses the private art collection of founders John de Menil and Dominique de Menil, or to the collection itself...
received Kelly's Tablet, 188 framed works on paper, including sketches, working drawings and collages.
Recognition
- 1963: Brandeis Creative Arts Award der Barandeis University, Waltham
- 1964: Carnegie International
- 1974: Member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters
- 1987: Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des LettresOrdre des Arts et des LettresThe Ordre des Arts et des Lettres is an Order of France, established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture, and confirmed as part of the Ordre national du Mérite by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963...
- 2000: Praemium ImperialePraemium ImperialeThe Praemium Imperiale is an arts prize awarded since 1989 by the imperial family of Japan on behalf of the Japan Art Association in the fields painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and theatre/film...
External links
- Ellsworth Kelly in St Ives exhibition at Tate St IvesTate St IvesTate St Ives is an art gallery in St Ives, Cornwall, England, exhibiting work by modern British artists, including work of the St Ives School. The three storey building, designed by architects Evans and Shalev, lies on the site of an old gas works, overlooking Porthmeor Beach. It was opened in...
, UK, 2006 - Ellsworth Kelly in "Blue Green Black Red: The Dallas Panels" on the north wall of the main lobby at the Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, Texas
- Biography from the Museum of Modern Art, includes selected images and bibliography
- Biography from Guggenheim Museum includes selected works, and suggested reading list.
- VernissageTV Interview with Ellsworth Kelly at the Art 39 Basel Fair.