Black Relief over Yellow and Orange

Artist Ellsworth Kelly (1923 - 2015)

Date2004

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions214 x 162.6 cm

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LineCollection & image © Hugh Lane Gallery. Donated by the Conlan Family through Section 1003, Taxes Consolidation Act, 2006. © The Estate of Ellsworth Kelly.

Object number1986

DescriptionEllsworth Kelly's paintings are the fruit of observations of nature. Their unusual 'take' on the natural world, after forty years of painting is no longer as alarming as it was initially. As an American working in Paris after the Second World War and as a sophisticated European on his return to New York, his work developed outside the principle movements of the day, both l'ecole de Paris or abstract expressionism. Only later with what became known as 'Post painterly abstraction' did his work begin to gain attention.

This pared down view of the world is by no means minimal in its intention, indeed what at first may seem parsimonious reveals itself to be a joyful, crystal clear celebration of objects and places. Secular, free from the quasi-religious justification for ecstasy or revelation, the paintings bear witness to a conscious specific experience that has no meaning outside it's visual, haptic quidity.
In this sense he has almost single-handedly brings forward the concerns of Henri Matisse regarding arabesque, line, form and colour.

"Black Relief Over Yellow and Orange" 2004 is a perfect example of Kelly's continued investigation into both painting and the real world. The astounding consistence of vision that informs all Kelly's work is evident in this recent painting.

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