Image not available
Ellsworth Kelly
1923-2015
Blue Red
1964
29 3/4 x 22 1/4 inches (75.6 x 56.5 cm)
Oil on paper.
2019.10
Gift of Dorothy Lichtenstein.
Notes
Watermark: Blind stamp, Veritable Papier d'Arches Satine on verso and recto.
Kelly developed the abstract paintings for which he is best known from the distillation of forms observed in the world around him. By the mid-1960s, he had developed his mature style based on a vocabulary of simple abstract shapes and solid colors. Blue Red of 1964 is a study for a lithograph from a suite of twenty-seven lithographs published by Maeght in Paris in 1964-65. As in Kelly's paintings, the composition emphasizes the basic opposition between two colors, red and blue, and two shapes, the straight edges of the red versus the rounded edges of the blue area. But in contrast with the uniform application and hard edges of the paintings, the visible brushwork and soft edges of this oil on paper endows it with a greater sensuousness.
Kelly developed the abstract paintings for which he is best known from the distillation of forms observed in the world around him. By the mid-1960s, he had developed his mature style based on a vocabulary of simple abstract shapes and solid colors. Blue Red of 1964 is a study for a lithograph from a suite of twenty-seven lithographs published by Maeght in Paris in 1964-65. As in Kelly's paintings, the composition emphasizes the basic opposition between two colors, red and blue, and two shapes, the straight edges of the red versus the rounded edges of the blue area. But in contrast with the uniform application and hard edges of the paintings, the visible brushwork and soft edges of this oil on paper endows it with a greater sensuousness.
Inscriptions/Markings
Initialed and dated on recto, at lower right, in graphite; signed on verso in graphite.
Artist
Classification
Century Drawings
Catalog link
Department