Ellsworth KellyOrange over Green1964-65
1964-65
About the Item
- Creator:Ellsworth Kelly (1923, American)
- Creation Year:1964-65
- Dimensions:Height: 35.25 in (89.54 cm)Width: 23.25 in (59.06 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:New York, NY
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU79336232
Ellsworth Kelly
Ellsworth Kelly was one of the key figures in postwar American art, exercising major influence on the fields of Pop art, minimalism, Color-Field and hard-edge painting. Widely known for his brightly colored geometric compositions, he was among the first artists, alongside his contemporary Frank Stella, to use irregularly shaped canvases. Although highly abstract, Kelly’s paintings and prints are precise expressions in color and form of his sensory experience of the world.
Kelly's works, both two- and three-dimensional, are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and displayed at such sites as the UNESCO headquarters in Paris.
Kelly grew up in the town of Newburgh, New York, near the Oradell Reservoir. He was an avid birder as a child and loved the colorful illustrations of naturalist John James Audubon. Encouraged to study art by a high school teacher, he enrolled at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, remaining there until 1943, when he was inducted into the army. During World War II, he served along with scores of other artists, in a unit known as the Ghost Army, where he learned the elements of camouflage while creating ersatz trucks and tanks intended to mislead Axis forces.
When the war was over, Kelly took advantage of the G.I. Bill to study painting at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, drawing inspiration from the museum's collections, and, later, at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, in Paris. While in France, he immersed himself in the varied artistic movements and styles represented there and befriended Americans avant-gardists, such as composer John Cage and choreographer Merce Cunningham, as well as the German-French Surrealist Jean Arp and Romanian sculptor Constantin Brâncuși.
Upon his return to the United States, in 1954, he found himself at odds with the dominant style of the period, Abstract Expressionism, which favored a dynamic and energetic application of paint in a loose manner. Like Stella, Kelly was interested in formal precision and explorations of color. Following an exhibition of his work at the Betty Parsons Gallery in 1956, Kelly’s work was included in the "Young America 1957” show at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
During the 1960s, Kelly played with color and form to tease out and celebrate the tension between a painting’s subject and its background. In one of his most famous works, 1963's Red Blue Green, for example, two shapes, one red, one blue, both contrast and resonate with a green background that extends to the edge of the canvas on both sides, appearing at moments to be the work’s primary shape. To explore this relationship between form and ground further, Kelly began using nontraditional, shaped canvases, as in the monochromatic 1966 Yellow Piece, from, whose two curved corners draws the eye to the wall behind it, as though the gallery wall itself were part of the composition. A lithograph from the same period, Blue and Orange consists of two shapes in the title’s complementary colors facing off against one another with a tension that makes them appear almost animated.
Kelly made drawings and prints throughout his career, using plants and flowers as his primary source of inspiration. Like his paintings, his drawings tend to be relatively flat in perspective, but they are rarely abstract. A 1993 drawing of an oak leaf is clearly representational, but rendered with very minimal color and line. In the mid-1960s, he produced the series “Suite of Twenty-Seven Lithographs” with the Paris-based Maeght Éditeur.
Later, collaborating with Gemini G.E.L., he created very large-scale works, such as 1988’s Purple/Red/Gray/Orange, which is 18 feet long and might be one of the biggest lithographs ever made. Kelly produced 140 sculptures, including the aluminum White Curves, created for the Fondation Beyeler, in Riehen, Switzerland, in 2002. In his three-dimensional works, as in his paintings, Kelly used form, color and light to play with perceptions of surface and depth, inviting viewers to look closely and see the world in a new way.
Find original Ellsworth Kelly art on 1stDibs.
- ShippingRetrieving quote...Ships From: New York, NY
- Return PolicyThis item cannot be returned.
- Blue over GreenBy Ellsworth KellyLocated in New York, NYFrame size: 43 1/4 x 32 inches Printer: Imprimerie Maeght, Levallois-Perret, France Publisher: Maeght Editeur, Paris Edition size: 75, plus proofs Catalogue Raisonné: Axsom 26 Signe...Category
1960s Contemporary Abstract Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Raw WarBy Bruce NaumanLocated in New York, NYPublisher: Castelli Graphics, NY and Nicholas Wilder Gallery, Los Angeles Edition size: 100, plus proofs Catalogue raisonné: Cordes 7 Signed, dated, and numbered, lower marginCategory
1970s Contemporary Abstract Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Woman with Corset and Long HairBy Willem de KooningLocated in New York, NYPrinter: Hollanders Workshop, New York Publisher: Knoedler, New York Edition size: 61, plus proofs Catalogue Raisonné: Graham 17 Signed, dated, and numbered inpencil, lower marginCategory
1970s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Blue and Green over OrangeBy Ellsworth KellyLocated in New York, NYPrinter: Imprimerie Arte, Paris Publisher: Maeght Editeur, Paris Edition size: 75, plus proofs Catalogue raisonné: Axsom 29 Signed and numbered in pencil, lower marginCategory
1960s Minimalist Abstract Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- UntitledBy Barnett NewmanLocated in New York, NYPrinter: Pratt Graphic Arts Center, New York Publisher: The Artist Catalogue Raisonné: BNF 202 Signed and inscribed in pencil, lower marginCategory
1960s Minimalist Abstract Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- ValentineBy Willem de KooningLocated in New York, NYPrinter: Fred Genis, Hollanders Workshop, New York Publisher: Knoedler, New York Edition size: 47, plus proofs Catalogue raisonné: Graham 16 Signed, dated, and numbered, lower m...Category
1970s Abstract Abstract Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Blue Face from the Brushstroke Figures SeriesBy Roy LichtensteinLocated in Miami, FLLithograph, waxtype woodcut and screenprint on 638-g/m cold-pressed Saunders Waterford Paper. From the "Brushstroke Figures" series, 1989. Hand signed rf Lichtenstein, dated ('89) a...Category
1980s Contemporary Abstract Prints
MaterialsLithograph, Screen, Woodcut
- Letter B - Lithograph by Rafael Alberti - 1972By Rafael AlbertiLocated in Roma, ITHand Signed. Edition of 119 pieces (99 Arabic Numbers and XX Roman Numbers).Category
1970s Contemporary Abstract Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Woman in Blue - Lithograph by Fritz Baumgartner - 1970caBy Fritz BaumgartnerLocated in Roma, ITHand Signed. Edition of 90 pieces plus some artist's proofs. Excellent condition.Category
1970s Contemporary Abstract Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Tall Tree and the Eye at the Royal Academy poster (hand signed by Anish Kapoor)By Anish KapoorLocated in New York, NYAnish Kapoor Tall Tree and the Eye at the Royal Academy (hand signed by Anish Kapoor), 2009 Off-set lithograph poster (hand signed by Anish Kapoor) Signed in black marker lower right...Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Abstract Prints
MaterialsPermanent Marker, Lithograph, Offset
- Terrible Twister (State II)By Joe GoodeLocated in Calabasas, CAArtist: Joe Goode Title: Terrible Twister (State II) Year: 1991 Medium: Lithograph on Japanese handmade Kozo natural paper (unbleached Uwazen and Kozo Misumi) Sheet: 11 1/4 × 9 1/2 i...Category
1990s Contemporary Abstract Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- 1980 After Eduardo Chillida 'Museum of Art Carnegie Institute' LithographBy Eduardo ChillidaLocated in Brooklyn, NYPoster for a Chillida exhibit at the Museum of Art Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, 1980.Category
1980s Contemporary Abstract Prints
MaterialsLithograph