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Born in 1923 in Newburgh, New York, Ellsworth Kelly is one of the leading American artists of the late twentieth century. A painter and sculptor, his paintings could be considered a link between Pop Art and Abstract Expressionism, although his work came after the Abstract Expressionist period.
Kelly's work is neither Pop nor Expressionistic but is instead hailed as modern Formalist and Constructivist work where the "subject" of the painting is considered its form, and nothing else is more powerfully stressed. It is nearly the reverse of the whole traditional process of "seeing" a picture. Pop Art also challenges the tradition of the "fine arts" and promotes the philosophy that this art is less a pure art form and more a celebration of mass art media--advertising, photography, and film. Abstract Expressionism is a near opposite of Pop Art and is much closer to the work of Kelly.
Ellsworth Kelly's work is referred to as "color field" painting and that also describes the work. Radical simplicity and purity of shape and color are terms used to define his work: pure color for its own sake and knife-edge sharpness in the contours that contain that color. In Kelly's works, large controlled areas of color exude a formal atmosphere and the canvas itself becomes the perceptual object. This challenges the viewer to participate in the work far more than traditional representation.
Kelly's formal art studies began at Pratt Institute in New York, and he later attended the Boston Museum School. After a period in the armed services during World War II, he moved to Paris (1948) and was one of the last American artists of his generation to seek inspiration and instruction in what was still the recognized capital of the art world at that period in history. It was while in Paris that Kelly met Dada artist Jean Arp (1950), and this was to have continued and strong impact on his work.
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Following Arp's example, Kelly began to explore the laws of "chance and random selection" in his own work. Kelly used a cooler, more detached, near lyrical form of large-scale abstract painting, allowing this chance selection of color and pattern to bring life to his paintings. The formal composition, at that time, was created on a predetermined grid structure.
When Kelly returned to the United States in 1954, he moved to New York where he became one of the chief proponents of hard-edged abstraction. As early as 1950, Kelly had made sculptural relief works, but it was not until the end of that decade that his free-standing compositions were created. As he became celebrated for his large-scale monochromatic canvases, Kelly continued to pursue sculptural projects over the following years. One of the most well known of Kelly's works is Red Blue Green painted in 1963. In this work, the canvas is divided, not evenly but balanced, into three clearly defined sections. The tones of red and blue are deeper in intensity than the green, but the green shape extends between and under both the red and blue. By using color in smooth, sharply defined areas and in geometric balance, Kelly created a formal and scrupulous presentation of tone, shape and proportion. Another work that used these same tones is Green Blue Red (1964), which can be seen at the Whitney Museum in New York City. Blue Red Green (1962) can be viewed at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
In 1986 Kelly created a sight-specific sculpture for the Cullen Sculpture Garden, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas. He conceived a triptych in sheet bronze, one of his first in that media. These three images, variations on the arc and the triangle, appear to float unanchored on the wall and cast constantly changing shadows across the mural surface. The placement on the wall suggests a random spinning of form, and the monumental bronzes seem to have been scattered across the surface in much the same way that Kelly's old friend Jean Arp used in his Dada compositions. Although the pattern seems random, it is known that much thoughtful interaction between the sculpture and the surroundings was used by Kelly.
Kelly's art, while observing the greatest possible purity of color, line and form, is always based on his perceptions of the real world around him. These perceptions come from both urban and natural landscape environments. Paintings may be based on careful observation of shadow play, from the curve of a bridge or hillside, the shape of a doorway, or the pattern of windowpanes. But it will always be Kelly's interplay of color and form that is a joy to view.
Purity, simplicity, color, balance. Whatever influence was imparted by previous abstract artists by the elements of earlier art and architecture, Ellsworth Kelly is recorded as one of the most important American artists. His sculpture works exude the same style and characteristic economy. Among other locales, works by Kelly can be seen at the Museum of Modern Art (New York City) the Tate Museum (London), Oklahoma Museum of Art (Oklahoma City), and The Art Institute (Chicago).
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Copyright ARTtalk Vol. 10 No. 8 -- June 2000