Ellsworth Kelly was born May 31, 1923, in Newburgh, New York. He studied at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, from 1941 to 1943. From 1946 to 1947, after military service, he attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The following year, Kelly went to France and enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris where he was introduced to Surrealism and Neo-Plasticism. While in France Kelly began to use abstract forms in his paintings. He began to make shaped-wood reliefs and collages in which elements were arranged according to the laws of chance. He soon began to make paintings in separate panels that could be recombined to create random compositions, as well as multi-panel paintings in which each canvas is painted a single color. Kelly returned to the United States in 1954, where he continued to develop and expand the vocabulary of his paintings, exploring issues of form and ground with his flatly painted canvases. His first solo show in New York was held at the Betty Parsons Gallery in 1956, and three years later, he was included in Sixteen Americans at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 1958, he also began to make freestanding sculptures. KellyÕs first retrospective was held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1973. The following year, Kelly began an ongoing series of totemic sculptures in steel and aluminum. KellyÕs extensive work has 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 1987Ð88; and a career retrospective in 1996 organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, which traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Tate Gallery, London; and the Haus der Kunst, Munich. Kelly lives in Spencertown. |
