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
drawings drawn five swift ten
I like to be able to get swift curves in the plant drawings that are usually drawn in five to ten minutes.
felt painted
I always felt that a painted edge between two colors was a depiction somehow.
developed fascinated paris saw
In Boston, I developed my eye from the drawing. In Paris, I was fascinated by what my eye saw in the way that Paris is built, its 'measure.'
inner sort
I have a sort of inner sense for scale.
earliest great owned painters people seals supposed
My earliest drawing is a supposed Carracci. It wasn't very expensive, I guess, because they don't know if it's a real Carracci. But it has all these seals on it of people who've owned it, and one of the great portrait painters of England, Reynolds, had owned it, so that's the earliest.
forms interested painting react space surface viewer work
I'm interested in the space between the viewer and the surface of the painting - the forms and the way they work in their surroundings. I'm interested in how they react to a room.
god invent
I sometimes don't try to invent something. I wait for some kind of a direction - and it happens. I get an angle, for instance, and it just appears, and I say, 'Oh my God - that's it!'
time work
Time has always been very important in my work.
world translate
The most pleasurable thing in the world, for me, is to see something and then translate how I see it.
eye thinking mind
I think that if you can turn off the mind and look only with the eyes, ultimately everything becomes abstract.
color space curves
I have worked to free shape from its ground, and then to work the shape so that it has a definite relationship to the space around it; so that it has a clarity and a measure within itself of its parts (angles, curves, edges and mass); and so that, with color and tonality, the shape finds its own space and always demands its freedom and separateness.
black-and-white color want
I'm not interested in edges. I'm interested in the mass and color, the black and white. The edges happen because the forms get as quiet as they can be. I want the masses to perform. When I work with forms and colors, I get the edge...
real ideas rose
A lot of young painters love to incorporate celebrity. One idea of being a painter is to use what's happening at the time. Velázquez was painting of his time. And so was Rembrandt. And Francis Bacon was painting his time in London. He was a real mover, but he saw the insect in the rose. But yes, when I do a painting, I want to take the "I did this" out of it. That's why I started using chance, like the markings on the wood. I never wanted to compose.
photography mean giving
Photography isolates the world via an aperture and gives the photographer the means to see differently, to achieve a spontaneous vision that is direct and uncompromising.