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Ellsworth Kelly
born 1923

American
Minimalism, Geometric Abstraction/ Hard Edge
Painters, Sculptors
Ellsworth Kelly has been a widely influential force in the post-war art world. He first rose to critical acclaim in the 1950s with his bright, multi-paneled and largely monochromatic canvases. Maintaining a persistent focus on the dynamic relationships between shape, form and color, Kelly was one of the first artists to create irregularly shaped canvases. His subsequent layered reliefs, flat sculptures, and line drawings further challenged viewers' conceptions of space. While not adhering to any one artistic movement, Kelly vitally influenced the development of Minimalism, Hard-edge painting, Color Field, and Pop art. Kelly intends for viewers to experience his artwork with instinctive, physical responses to the work's structure, color, and surrounding space rather than with contextual or interpretive analysis. He encourages a kind of silent encounter, or bodily participation by the viewer with the artwork, chiefly by presenting bold and contrasting colors free of gestural brushstrokes or recognizable imagery, panels protruding gracefully from the wall, and irregular forms inhabiting space as confidently as the viewer before them
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Organizations and Events
  • Venice Biennale
    (was included in)
  • "Drawing is another kind of language": Recent American Drawings from a New York Private Collection
    (was included in)
  • Art. Illuminated. (Permanent Collection Exhibition)
    (was included in)
  • Connections and Context (Permanent Collection Installation)
    (was included in)
Social Networks
  • Roy Lichtenstein
    (friend)
Artists from same movement
  • Ellsworth Kelly
  • Neil Williams
  • Agnes Martin
  • Jack Youngerman
  • Susan Rothenberg
  • Al Held
  • Miriam Schapiro
  • Frazer P. Dougherty
  • Arden Scott
  • Keith Sonnier
  • Frank Stella
  • Robert Morris
  • Paul Henry Brach
  • Stuart Davis
  • Mary Grigoriadis
  • Hilary Helfant
  • Alvin Loving
  • Dan Flavin
  • Gerald Murphy
  • Robert Grosvenor
  • John Newman
  • Ralph Humphrey
  • Leon Polk Smith
Places
  • Signa Gallery
    (exhibited at, 1960)
  • East Hampton
    (visited, 1960)
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