Ellsworth Kelly

"Ellsworth Kelly (1923- 2015) is associated with hard-edge painting, color field painting and the minimalist school. He lived and worked in Spencertown, New York. He attended Pratt University and then the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
His paintings incorporate bright, colorful hues. He exhibited at the Betty Parsons’ Gallery in New York and then at the Whitney in 1957 establishing him as a significant artist. Kelly spent time in Paris, where he was influenced early on by Picasso and socialized with Constantin Brancusi, Alexander Calder, Alberto Magnelli, Francis Picabia, Georges Braque, Alberto Giacometti, Joan Miro and Georges Vantongerloo, among other artists. . He studied art in Paris from 1948 to 1954 and enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris under the G.I. Bill. When his work was beginning to be exhibited in the U.S., the comparison was made to contemporary European artists. Although Ellsworth’s work was abstract and he was associated with color field painting, minimalism and post-painterly abstractions, he was always never bound to one movement.
As well as his paintings, Kelly is renowned for his sculptures which were included in the Whitney in 1982. Kelly’s sculptures are focused on simplicity and form, which reference two-dimensionality."