Ellsworth Kelly Dead At 92; American Abstract Artist Received Highest Honor From Obama?
Celebrated abstract artist, Ellsworth Kelly has died Sunday at his home in Spencer, N.Y. at the age of 92, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Matthew Marks of the Matthew Marks Gallery in Manhattan announced his death.
Kelly is one of America's great twentieth-century abstract artist and his distinct American painting style, combined brilliant colors and solid shapes. Forms created were inspiration taken from everyday life.
He gained fortitude in his art from being an avid bird-watcher in his youth, designing camouflage patterns while in the army and countless exercises in automatic drawing from European surrealism.
During New York's heyday of Abstract Expressionism, Ellsworth Kelly was living in France and was only distantly aware of art in the United States. He returned to America in 1954 and settled on the Financial District, out of Manhattan art's way. He had little interaction with his contemporaries.
Kelly was born on May 3, 1923 in Newburgh, N.Y. and after being discharged from the Army in 1945, he studied painting at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. His formative years as an artist were in Paris, which he briefly visited during World War II and returned to in 1948 to live in.
He recalled his early days in the city in an interview with The New York Times in 1996.
"Paris was gray after the war," shared Kelly. "I liked being alone. I liked being a stranger. I didn't speak French very well, and I liked the silence."
In 1992, Kelly joined the Anthony d'Offay Gallery in London and Matthew Marks Gallery in Manhattan.
One of Kelly's most moving installations was made in Washington, for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The art suggested the image of a great bird flying upward towards closed windows.
In 2013, Kelly received from President Obama the United States' highest honor for artistic excellence, The National Medal of Arts. That same year, a piece from Kelly was displayed in the Barnes Collection in Philadephia, reported The Washington Post.
It was his work from 1956 to 1957, the time where Kelly was gaining notice from gallerists and critics in New York.
Ellsworth Kelly is survived by, his husband Jack Shear and brother David.
