Ellsworth Kelly, the second oldest of his three male siblings, was born in Newburgh, New York 1923. Raised in northern New Jersey, he was known to spend most of his time alone, frequently monitoring insects and other avian species. His later observations of nature influenced his unique style of painting. After graduating high school, he studied technical art and design at the Pratt Institute from 1941 to 1942. Kelly served in the military for a brief period and was stationed in Germany, France, and England. Kelly’s short stay in Paris and exposure to shadows and camouflage greatly impacted his aesthetic and future professional path.
Kelly has stated that he discovered the elements he wanted to avoid in his paintings by assimilating the techniques of several art styles and creators. He thus did not include the painted edge, marks, or lines. Additionally, he demonstrated a more substantial interest in the museum’s windows than in the art shows when visiting the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris. Taking note of this, he created his representation of these windows. According to his own words, the painting disappeared as he understood it.
Kelly’s propensity to see things as potential works of art and demand exact imitation without embellishment significantly influenced his artistic approach. Using this method helped him to translate the material world into abstract shapes, colours, and compositions in his artwork. In the early 1960s and 1970s, Kelly’s intimate circle of artists, including Agnes Martin, Robert Indiana, and James Rosenquist, increasingly impacted him. Additionally, he gave developing Minimalist sculptors like Donald Judd, Carl Andre, and Richard Serra a paradigm of conceptualised simplified visual expression. Kelly’s artwork significantly influenced Donald Sultan’s creative and straightforward portrayals of commonplace objects like fruits and plants. Notably, Kelly’s work continues to influence the graphic design profession, leaving a lasting impact on subsequent generations in the years following World War II.
For many years, Ellsworth Kelly’s groundbreaking theories from the late 1940s and early 1950s changed and shaped the course of abstract painting. His contributions to the field of art, including the invention of multi-panel and one-colour paintings, his dedication to holistic frameworks, and the use of repetition and unpredictability were crucial in the 1960s painting movement away from expressionism. His approach to abstraction was unique and different from others as it was grounded in particulars rather than generalisations. In addition to creating totemic sculptures, Kelly was the first to produce artwork on public commission. Examples include an installation created in 1993 for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. and a sculpture donated to Barcelona in 1978. President Barack Obama presented Kelly with the National Medal of Arts in 2013.
Over seven decades, Kelly turned these unearthed works of art into paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, and photographs that were visually more striking than works in any artistic style. Even when experimenting with many materials and styles, his creative vision remained constant, recognising each piece as simple. The artist’s health deteriorated as his life was coming to an end, making it difficult for him to operate an oxygen tank. He explained that the effects of “the turpentine,” which made it difficult for him to work on large-scale paintings, were why he needed it. Kelly continued creating art and pushing limits despite these obstacles until his death.
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