Ellsworth Kelly
Ellsworth Kelly
Ellsworth Kellywas an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker associated with hard-edge painting, Color Field painting and minimalism. His works demonstrate unassuming techniques emphasizing simplicity of form, similar to the work of John McLaughlin and Kenneth Noland. Kelly often employed bright colors. He lived and worked in Spencertown, New York...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionArtist
Date of Birth31 May 1923
CountryUnited States of America
drawing half hours
My drawings have to be quick. If they don't happen in 20 minutes or a half hour, then they're no good.
drawing
All my work begins with drawings.
drawing trying copying
Shading is more like copying. And certainly I do copy, but I'm making drawings, and I'm not trying to make them with the shading.
call close draws essence everybody leaves shape
Matisse draws what I call the essence of the plants. He leaves a shape open. He'll do a leaf and not close it. Everybody used to say, oh, I got it all from Matisse, and I said, 'Not really.'
brooding geometric kept work
All my work comes from perceiving. I kept seeing things that were brooding in me. I'm not a geometric artist.
people
I've always wanted... I wanted to give people joy.
nature
I'm constantly investigating nature - nature, meaning everything.
hard mixed
I don't like mixed colors that much, like plum color or deep, deep colors that are hard to define.
paintings searching
My ideas come, wh-pheww. And I draw. Just recently, when I'm searching for ideas for paintings and sculptures, I wait for ideas, and it's always visual.
bit goes gray orange takes time
Gray goes with gold. Gray goes with all colors. I've done gray-and-red paintings, and gray and orange go so well together. It takes a long time to make gray because gray has a little bit of color in it.
bought drawings kept paris somehow
One of the first drawings I did in Paris - I wasn't thinking of doing drawings, but somehow or other, I kept drawing - I bought a hyacinth flower with a lot of leaves, just to make me feel like spring.
almost antique coming liked separate
In Paris in the late '40s, I started making my first reliefs. They are separate panels. I wanted to do something coming out of the wall, almost like a collage. I did a lot of white reliefs when I started because I liked antique reliefs, really old stuff.
draw drawing enjoy grew school taught
I was taught to draw very well when I was in school at Boston. And I grew to enjoy drawing so much that I never stopped.
coat density gets surface
I don't like acrylic because you can't get the density of color. And with each coat of oil paint, the surface gets better and richer.