Kelly, W. Paintings

Ellsworth Kelly was an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker associated with hard-edge painting, Color Field painting, and minimalism. He was born on May 31, 1913, in Newburgh, New York. Kelly is known for his abstract works featuring simple forms and vibrant colors, which he believed reflected the essence of his visual experience.

Kelly attended the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn before his education was interrupted by his service in the military during World War II. His experiences in Europe, particularly in Paris where he decided to live after the war, had a profound impact on his artistic development. During this period, he was exposed to the work of artists such as Jean Arp, Constantin Brancusi, and Alexander Calder, and was influenced by their use of form and color. He began to create works that emphasized simplicity and abstraction, rejecting the gestural brushwork of abstract expressionism, which was prevalent in the American art scene at the time.

Returning to the United States in the 1950s, Kelly settled in New York and became a key figure in the development of minimalism, although he resisted affiliation with any specific artistic movement. His works often consisted of multiple panels or shapes, with each panel painted a single, flat color. Kelly's exploration of the boundary between painting and sculpture led to his creation of freestanding pieces that further blurred the distinction between the two disciplines.

Throughout his career, Kelly continued to pursue a rigorous abstraction based on observation of the world around him, whether it was the shape of a plant leaf or the shadows cast by a building. His work has been exhibited widely, including a significant retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1973, and is held in the collections of major museums around the world.

Ellsworth Kelly passed away on December 27, 2015, at the age of 92. His legacy is characterized by a bold simplicity that has had a lasting influence on the trajectory of abstract art. He is remembered not only for his contributions to the American art scene but also for his role in the broader narrative of 20th-century art.