Ellsworth Kelly

Joseph Huttner
31 March 2006
Professor Masters

Ellsworth Kelly – The Painting Sculptor

Born in 1923, Ellsworth Kelly is a painter whose work has been instrumental in the development of twentieth century art in many different mediums. Kelly was the leading member of a group known as the “Hard Edge Movement,” a reaction against the abstract expressionist movement of the 1950’s. His work is described as condensing visual cues of the surrounding world and recreating them on canvas mediums into elementary colors and shapes. As Kelly once noted, “sculpture for me is something I’ve brought off the wall.” Today, his work is regarded as vital for the evolution of twenty-first century sculpture, drawing, and painting.

Born in New York, Kelly’s parents were working-class people, but always allowed him to pursue his interests in painting. As a child, Kelly frequently bird watched with his grandmother and mother. His early passion for color and form in painting is likely a result of his study of birds, wildlife illustrators and ornithologists. Throughout high school, Kelly was pushed by his art teachers to hone his artistic talents in oil painting and watercolor. In 1941, Kelly moved to Gainsborough Brooklyn and studied applied arts at the prestigious Pratt Institute. But his study did not last long – Kelly was inducted into the United States Army at Fort Dix, New Jersey on January 1st, 1943.

Interestingly, Kelly’s term in the army was a blessing in disguise for his artistic career. Upon review of Kelly’s credentials, he was transferred to the 603rd Engineers Camouflage Battalion at Fort Meade, Maryland. Here, Kelly worked on silkscreen posters that were used in classes training soldiers in camouflage techniques. During his term, Kelly kept sketchbooks consisting of drawings and watercolors. He eventually found himself in Paris as part of the “D+10” operation which sent troops into Normandy ten days after the D-day maneuver. The battalion made its way to Paris, which was still considered the center of the art world. Sadly, all the museums were closed due to the war. But have no fear, Kelly would soon return to Paris, and the city would be instrumental in developing Kelly’s talents and establishing his minimalist style.

During the spring of 1949, Kelly traveled back to France where he studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Art, but he found classes boring and his attendance was infrequent. His early artwork in Paris consisted mostly of half-length portraits, which echoed works of Pablo Picasso and Byzantine and Romanesque art. But Kelly’s style would change quickly as he tried to simplify forms of objects, and made paintings based on collages and sculptures. Simplicity in Kelly’s work gave birth to abstractionism. (essay continues below.)

As Kelly continued to combine what he recognized in nature with what he knew and admired in art, his form in painting flattened, deemphasized volume, and images were compressed into shallow space. Although most of Kelly’s paintings lacked invented lines (that is, he only drew what was physically present), his suggestion of the illusion of death, while at the same time negating depth, became characteristic of his compositions (see sunflower picture). While Kelly’s sketches were usually small, his paintings often took on larger proportions. In 1952 Kelly noted, “In fact all the things I’ve done I would like to see much larger. I am not interested in painting as it has been accepted for so long – to hang on walls of houses as pictures. To hell with pictures – they should be the wall –even better – on the outside of the wall – of large buildings…Art should meet the eye – direct.” Later collages and paintings took on massive proportions, some as large as eight feet square.

Kelly spent much of his later life exploring shapes such as the curve and the “neutral rectangle” which Kelly claimed established the most successful equilibrium between form and color. Kelly would turn to other shapes, such as the triangle, the trapezoid, and the parallelogram, all of which were executed in a group of paintings he showed in 1968 at the Sidney Janis Galley. Today, Kelley lives in Spencertown, New York where he has a studio that allows him to work on a large scale both horizontally and vertically. He has recreated many of his earlier works in larger proportions. As Kelly has noted, “My paintings are not depictions in the natural world.” However, his work is drawn from the natural world and his revolutionary use of color, space, light, and shapes set him apart from earlier expressionists and created a new genre of art that was not separated from the natural world, but was objectified abstractionist art nonetheless.

In 1996, the Guggenheim Museum announced an exhibition for Kelly’s work that will span for fifty years, which will travel to the Musuem of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Tate Gallery in London, and the Haus der Kunst in Munich. Kelly’s paintings, drawings, and collages are also on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in an exhibition titled “Ellsworth Kelly: Paris/New York 1949-1959” and shows the significant changes in Kelly’s work during this formative period that was instrumental in his artistic development.

Source: Waldman, Diane. Ellsworth Kelly. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. 1996-1997. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.