A must-see show for art lovers: Ellsworth Kelly at the Louis Vuitton Foundation (Paris)

Ellsworth Kelly was one of the pioneers of minimalism and is widely considered to be one of the leading American artists and a major figure in 20th-century art. With a body of work spanning more than 70 years, Kelly was a maverick artist who created striking works using geometric block shapes and bright colours. His exploration of abstract, hard-edge painting and colour-field painting techniques were highly innovative for their time and paved the way for the rise of the Minimalist movement in the 1970s.

Joyous, vibrant, thought-provoking and often controversial, Ellsworth Kelly’s oeuvre is a celebration of shape, form, and colour. Art lovers can take in the influential and remarkable works of Ellsworth Kelly as part of the collection held by the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris.

Ellsworth Kelly– his life, his work and his inspirations

The story of Ellsworth Kelly’s life and his inspirations are as colourful and captivating as his artworks. A child prodigy, Kelly’s artistic vision was shaped by his experiences in World War Two, his time in Paris, and his return to America.

Early years

Born in 1923 in New Jersey, Ellsworth Kelly seemed destined to be an artist. Kelly began making artwork in elementary school and was nominated ‘best artist’ by his junior high school peers. At the prompting of his high school art teacher, Kelly’s parents reluctantly enrolled him in the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, which he attended from 1941 until being called up for Army duty in 1943.

Army service

The Army soon found ways to put Kelly’s prodigious artistic talent to use. Assigned to the ‘Ghost Army’ unit, Kelly’s tasks involved creating fake inflatable trucks and tanks and using subterfuge to deceive the Axis forces. Serving across Europe in France, England, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany, Kelly was greatly influenced by European Romanesque and Byzantine architecture and art.

Post-war

Once the war was over, Kelly took advantage of the G.I. Bill and studied at Boston’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts from 1946 to 1947. It was here that he had his first exhibition and began teaching art classes.

Kelly soon tired of Boston and moved to France in 1948 to hone his artistic vision and develop his style. He attended the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, albeit infrequently. Kelly found inspiration in the works of Monet, Picasso, Cézanne, Matisse, and the circle of artists he surrounded himself with. Luminaries such as John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Jean Arp, and Constantin Brancusi made up Kelly’s inner circle. Despite his poor academic record, Kelly developed his trademark minimalist style in Paris over the next five years.

An artist finds his voice

Immersing himself in art and surrounded by other major talents, Kelly quickly moved from a representational style (depicting shapes and forms as his eye perceived them) to a striking abstract technique.

Taking inspiration from nature and architecture, Kelly took the details and colours that he saw and stripped them back to their most direct representation. His palette consisted of basic colours such as black, yellow, blue, green, and white. He used simple geometric forms on protruding canvases and often used multiple canvases. The work was bold and controversial, with many critics unable to reconcile his paintings with the artistic trends at the time.

Return to America

Although Kelly’s six years in Paris were fruitful artistically speaking, he was not managing so well in a practical sense. He had failed to learn French at more than a basic level and had only managed to sell one painting the entire time. After being evicted from his studio, Kelly returned to America to break into the New York art scene. Although he again ran into difficulties with critics who did not fully grasp his work, Kelly’s first show in 1956 was a success. New York was abuzz with talk of this innovative young abstract painter whose work was so unlike any of his contemporaries.

The 1960s and onwards

Throughout the 1960s Kelly created major works such as Blue on White and started to experiment with odd-shaped canvases as exemplified by his groundbreaking Yellow Piece. Kelly continued to push boundaries, redefining how a work of art interacts and contextualises the space in which it is displayed. As well as his paintings, Kelly began devoting himself to sculpture, eventually creating 140 pieces.

Ellsworth Kelly continued to produce remarkable work until his death at 92 in 2015. His works are joyous, intriguing, and energetic. They cause us to question how we view the world and have had a massive impact on the art world.

In a sense, what I've tried to capture is the reality of flux, to keep art an open, incomplete situation, to get at the rapture of seeing

Ellsworth Kelly: American painter, printmaker, and sculptor

The Ellsworth Kelly exhibition at the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris

From 4th of May to 9th of September 2024, to celebrate the hundred-year anniversary of the artist’s birth, the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris is hosting the exhibition: Ellsworth Kelly. Shapes and Colours, 1949-2015. The exhibition features over a 100 of Kelly’s works sourced from major international museums and private collections. To attend, go to 8 avenue du Mahatma Gandhi, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, within the Bois de Boulogne.