Ellsworth Kelly

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Ellsworth Kelly (1923 – 2015) was an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker associated with hard-edge painting, Color Field painting and minimalism. He lived and worked in Spencertown, New York.

Born 1923 Newburgh, NY
Died 2015, Spencertown, NY

Education

1950 – 51
Taught at the American School in Paris

1946 – 47
Diploma Program at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, drawing and painting classes with Carl Zerbe

1942 – 45
Served military duty

1941 – 43
Studied Applied Arts at the Pratt Institute, New York

Select Solo Exhibitions

2014
Selected Work, Gemini G.E.L. at Joni Moisant Weyl, New York, NY

2013
Prints, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Madison, WI
Singular Forms, Mnuchin Gallery, New York, NY
Sculpture on the Wall, The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, PA
At Ninety, Matthew Marks Gallery, New York
Chatham Series, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
Panel Paintings 2004-2009, The Phillips Collection, Washington DC

2012
Colored Paper Images, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
Drawn from Nature: Plant Lithographs by Ellsworth Kelly, Saugatuck Center for the Arts, Saugatuck, MI
Ellsworth Kelly: Los Angeles, Matthew Marks Gallery, CA
Ellsworth Kelly: Prints and Paintings, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA
Ellsworth Kelly: Sculpture for a Large Wall, The Museum of Modern Art, NY
Ellsworth Kelly: Plant Drawings, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
Sculpture, The Morgan Library, NY

2011
Reliefs 2009-2010, Matthew Marks Gallery, NY (catalogue)
Black and White Drawings, Matthew Marks Gallery, NY
Ellsworth Kelly: Black & White, Haus der Kunst, Munich. Will travel to Museum Wiesbaden, Wiesbaden, Germany (catalogue)
Ellsworth Kelly: Plant Drawings, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich. Will travel to Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY (catalogue)
Ellsworth Kelly: Wood Sculpture, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA (catalogue)

2010
Plants, Flowers and Fruits: Ellsworth Kelly Lithographs, Norton Simon Museum of Art, Pasadena, CA
Ellsworth Kelly: Drawings 1954-62, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Middlesbrough, England. Traveled to the Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin

2009
Ellsworth Kelly: Diagonal, Matthew Marks Gallery, NY (catalogue)
Ellsworth Kelly: Drawings 1959–1962, Matthew Marks Gallery, NY

2008
Ellsworth Kelly Plant Lithographs, Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh

2007
Ellsworth Kelly: The Rivers, Gemini G.E.L at Joni Moisant Weyl, NY
Focus: Ellsworth Kelly, The Museum of Modern Art, NY
Front Room: Ellsworth Kelly, Baltimore Museum of Art
Ellsworth Kelly in Resonance: Selections from the Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA

2006
Drawn from Nature: The Plant Lithographs of Ellsworth Kelly, Axa Gallery, NY
Ellsworth Kelly: New Paintings, Matthew Marks Gallery, NY
Drawings on a Bus—Sketchbook 23, 1954, Matthew Marks Gallery, NY
Ellsworth Kelly in St Ives, Tate St Ives, St Ives, England
Ellsworth Kelly, The Serpentine Gallery, London

2005
Ellsworth Kelly: Tablet, The Menil Collection, Houston, TX
Kelly In Color, Grand Rapids Art Museum, Grand Rapids, MI
Drawn from Nature: The Plant Lithographs of Ellsworth Kelly, Grand Rapids Art Museum, Grand Rapids, MI. Traveled to the Hood Museum, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH; Tate Gallery, St Ives, England, and AXA Gallery, NY

2004
Ellsworth Kelly: Lithographs, Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh
Ellsworth Kelly: New Editions, Gemini G.E.L. at Joni Moisant Weyl, NY

2003
Ellsworth Kelly, Whitney Museum, NY
Matthew Marks Gallery, NY

2002
ELLSWORTH KELLY Werke 1956-2002, Fondation Beyeler, Basel, Switzerland

2001
Matthew Marks Gallery, NY

1999
Ellsworth Kelly – Sculpture for a Large Wall, The Museum of Modern Art, NY
Five Decades of Line, Form, and Color, Mitchell-Innes & Nash Gallery, NY
Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany
Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich, Germany
Chicago Art Institute, IL

1998
Ellsworth Kelly: New Paintings, Matthew Marks Gallery, NY
Retrospectives in Los Angeles, New York, and Munich

1996
Ellsworth Kelly. A Retrospective, Guggenheim Museum, NY

1989
Courtyard Installation, Chicago Art Institute, Chicago, IL

1982
Ellsworth Kelly: Sculpture, Whitney Museum of American Art New York, NY

1979
Leo Castelli Gallery, NY
Ellsworth Kelly: Painting and Sculpture, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
Ellsworth Kelly: Recent Paintings and Sculpture, Metropolitan Museum of Art, , NY

1973
Ellsworth Kelly: Curved Series, Leo Castelli Gallery, NY
Retrospective, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

1965
Sidney Janis Gallery, NY

1964
Galerie Maeght, Paris, France

1963
Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings by Ellsworth Kelly, Gallery of Modern Art, Washington D.C

1958
Galerie Maeght, Paris, France

1956
Betty Parsons Gallery, NY

1951
Galerie Arnaud, Paris, France

Select Group Exhibitions

2014
Modernism from the National Gallery of Art: The Robert & Jane Meyerhoff Collection, de Young Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Top Drawer: Select Drawings from the Collection, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA
Make it New: Abstract Painting from the National Gallery of Art, 1950-1975, The Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA
Anderson Collection at Stanford University, Stanford, CA
Beyond the Limited Life of Painting: Prints and Multiples from the Holding Capital Group Collection, Perez Art Museum, Miami, FL
Monet/ Kelly, The Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA
Standing in the Shadows of Love: The Aldrich Collection 1964-1974, Part II, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT

2013
The Artist and the Poet, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL

2012
Refocus: Art of the ‘60s, MOCA Jacksonville, Jacksonville, FL
Intimate Immensity: The Susan and Larry Marx Collection, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA

2011
At Eye Level: Masterpieces of Medieval and Modern Art, Ulmer Museum, Ulm, Germany
Contemporary Collecting: The Judith Neisser Collection, The Art Institute of Chicago, IL
Malevich and the American Legacy, Gagosian Gallery, NY
Surface Truths: Abstract Painting in the Sixties, Norton Simon Museum of Art, Pasadena, CA
High Fidelity: Selections from the 1960s and 1970s, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, La Jolla, CA
Contemporary Collections (From 1960 to Present), Centre Pompidou, Paris
September 11, PS1 MoMA, Long Island City, NY
Surface, Support, Process: The 1960s Monochrome in the Guggenheim Collection, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NY
Art at the Origin: The Early 1960s, The Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA
Linde Family Wing for Contemporary Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
Contemporary Drawings from the Irving Stenn Jr. Collection, The Art Institute of Chicago, IL

2010
Focus on Artists, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres / Ellsworth Kelly, L’Académie de France à Rome, Villa Medici, Rome (catalogue)
American Moderns on Paper: Masterworks from the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Tex.
Abstract Resistance, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
Monet and Abstraction, Museo Thyssen Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain
The Shape of Abstraction, Boston University Art Gallery, Boston, MA
Calder to Warhol: Introducing the Fisher Collection, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA
Contemporary Collecting: Selections from the Donna and Howard Stone Collection, The Art Institute of Chicago, IL
Vortexhibition Polyphonica, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, WA
On the Mark: Contemporary Works on Paper, Baltimore Museum of Art, MD
Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C. Traveled to the Brooklyn Museum
From Line to Plane, The Museum of Modern Art, NY
On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century, The Museum of Modern Art, NY
Drawing in Progress, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Middlesbrough, England
Men on Madison, Gemini G.E.L. at Joni Moisant Weyl, NY

2009
Cézanne and Beyond, Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA
Artist’s Choice: Vik Muniz, Rebus, The Museum of Modern Art, NY
Nueva York: El papel de las ultimas vanguardias, Museum de Arte Contemporaneo Esteban Vicente, Segovia, Spain
The Thaw Collection of Master Drawings—Acquisitions since 2002,The Morgan Library & Museum, NY
Classic Contemporary: Lichtenstein, Warhol & Friends, Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art, Las Vegas, NV
Three: The Triptych in Modern Art, Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, Germany
Matisse and The Abstraction: The Abstract Legacy of Matisse to the United States and Back, 1948–1968, Musée Matisse, Le Cateau-Cambrésis, France
Selections from the Frances and John Bowes Collection, California College of the Arts, San Francisco, CA
Compass in Hand: Selections from The Judith Rothschild Foundation Contemporary Drawings Collection, The Museum of Modern Art, NY
Modern and Contemporary Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Hood Museum of Art, Hanover, NH
Chance Aesthetics, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis, MO
The Modern Wing, The Art Institute of Chicago
The Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Collection: Selected Works, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Focus on Artists: Selections from the Collection, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA
The Anniversary Show, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA

2008
Face to Face, Part 2, The Daros Collection, Zürich
Attention to Detail, The FLAG Art Foundation, NY
The Complexity of the Simple, L&M Arts, NY
Arp to Reinhardt: Rose Geometries, Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA
Modern and Contemporary Masterworks from the MFAH, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX
Drawn Together, The FLAG Art Foundation, NY

2007
Five Works in Bronze: Darren Almond, Robert Gober, Ellsworth Kelly, Willem de Kooning, Rebecca Warren, Matthew Marks Gallery, NY
Color Chart: Reinventing Color, 1950 to Today, The Museum of Modern Art, NY. Traveled to Tate Liverpool
Ellsworth Kelly: The Rivers, Gemini G.E.L at Joni Moisant Weyl, NY
Drawing Connections: Baselitz, Kelly, Penone, Rockburne, and the Old Masters, The Morgan Library & Museum, NY
In Monet’s Garden: The Lure of Giverny, Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH
Making Visible the Invisible: Abstract Art from MMoCA’s Permanent Collection, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Madison, WI
Water, Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, St. Louis
Taking Shape, Lennon Weinberg Gallery, NY
Think With the Senses–Feel With the Mind, Venice Biennale
Paper, Fisher Landau Center for Art, NY
UBS Openings: Drawings from the UBS Art Collection, Tate Modern, London
Minimalism/Postminimalism: Selections from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Foundation, Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR
Current, Robischon Gallery, Denver
Olga Hirshhorn Collects: Selections from the Permanent Collection, Corcoran Art Gallery, Washington, D.C.
Lines, Grids, Stains, Words, The Museum of Modern Art, NY
French Kiss, JGM Galerie, Paris, France
Contemporary Prints: Ellsworth Kelly, Helen Frankenthaler, and Others, Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, VA
What is a Line? Drawings from the Collection, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT
Fast Forward: Contemporary Collections for the Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas Museum of Art, TX
Modern Masters from the Chris Burmeister Collection, Jonson Gallery, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM
Optic Nerve: Perceptual Art of the 1960s, Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH
Modern American Masters, Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA
Drawn from Nature: The Plant Lithographs of Ellsworth Kelly, Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo, Seville

2006
Small Sculpture, Matthew Marks Gallery, NY
Graphics by 20th Century Masters from the Cochran Collection, Pensacola Museum of Art, Pensacola, FL
Redefined: Modern and Contemporary Art from the Collection, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Ellsworth Kelly in Resonance: Selections from the Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA
Fast Forward: Contemporary Collections for the Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas Museum of Art, TX
Plane/Figure: Amerikanische Kunst aus Schweizer Sammlungen, Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Winterthur, Switzerland
Under Cover: Artists’ Sketchbooks, Fogg Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, MA
The Guggenheim Collection, Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle Bonn, Bonn, Germany
Contemporary (Re)Define, Corcoran Gallery, Washington, D.C.
New York, New York: 50 Years of Art, Architecture, Photography, Film, and Video, Grimaldi Forum, Monaco
Le noir est une couleur, Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul, France
Cézanne: mythe et pélerins, Galerie d’Art du Conseil Général des Bouches du Rhône, Aix-en-Provence, France
Full House: Views of the Whitney’s Collection at 75, Whitney Museum of American Art, NY
Transforming Chronologies: An Atlas of Drawings, The Museum of Modern Art, NY
Recent Drawings: Robert Gober, Roni Horn, Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Brice Marden, Ken Price, Charles Ray, Terry Winters, Matthew Marks Gallery, NY

2005
Theme and Variation: Twentieth Century Master Prints, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, NY
Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy, London
Quartet: Johns, Kelly, Mitchell, Motherwell, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN
Drawing from the Modern, 1945–1975, The Museum of Modern Art, NY
Minimalism and Beyond, Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, St. Louis, MO
Les ateliers de la modernité, Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul, France
L’action restreinte, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes, Nantes, France
Sets, Series and Suites: Contemporary Prints, Torf Gallery, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
Color Pattern Grid, Austin Museum of Art

2004
Das MoMA in Berlin, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany

2003
Neues Museum Weserburg, Die Fondation Maeght, Bremen
Schloss Ujazdowski, Zentrum für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Von Picasso bis Warhol, Warsaw, Poland

2002
Ellsworth Kelly, Tablet: 1948–1973, The Drawing Center, New York, NY

1999
Ellsworth Kelly: Works on Paper 1948-1955, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Boston, MA

1996
Ellsworth Kelly on the Roof, Cantor Roof Garden, Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, NY

1993
New Displays: Ellsworth Kelly, Tate Gallery London

1987
Ellsworth Kelly: Works on Paper, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, MA
Ellsworth Kelly: A Print Retrospective, The Detroit Institute of Arts Detroit, MI

1979
36th Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting together with Willem de Kooning, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, Corcoran Gallery, Washington, DC

1968
The Art of the Real, USA 1948-1968, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

1966
American Pavilion, XXXIII Venice Biennale

1959
Sixteen Americans, Museum of Modern Art New York, NY

1957
Young America 1957, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

1947
Boris Mirski Art Gallery, Boston, MA

Awards & Honors

2013
National Medal of Ars, presented by the President of the United States

2002
Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres by the French Republic

2000
Praemium Imperiale for Painting

1993
Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur by the French Republic at the French Embassy in Washington DC

1988
Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Republic

1973
The Painting Prize from the Art Institute of Chicago

1948
Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris; travelled to see the Isenheimer Altarpiece in Colmar

His works demonstrate unassuming techniques emphasizing line, color and form, similar to the work of John McLaughlin and Kenneth Noland. Kelly often employed bright colors.