26 PROPERTY OF AN IMPORTANT MIDWEST COLLECTION Ellsworth Kelly Green Black 1968 oil on canvas 95 x 68 in. (241.3 x 172.7 cm) Initialed and dated “EK 68” on the reverse. Also signed and dated “Kelly 1968” on the stretcher.
Provenance Sidney Janis Gallery, New York Collection of Carter Burden, New York Sale: Sotheby Parke Bernet Inc., New York, Contemporary Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, May 15 and 16, 1980, lot 529 Acquired at the above sale by the present owner Exhibited New York, Sidney Janis Gallery, An Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture by Ellsworth Kelly October 7 – November 7, 1968, (cover illustration) New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, 1969 Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting, December 16, 1969 – February 1, 1970 Literature J. Coplans, Ellsworth Kelly 1971, pl. 205 (illustrated) Catalogue Essay In my painting, the painting is the subject rather than the subject, the painting. ELLSWORTH KELLY (Ellsworth Kelly quoted in Ellsworth Kelly Paintings and Sculptures: 1963-1979, Amsterdam, 1979, p. 34) Ellsworth Kelly’s work has given him unique status in the canon of great American Twentieth Century painters; his glorification of both shape and pure color has revolutionized the meaning of figurative expression. Kelly’s daring canvases aim for our most instinctual familiarities, as they simultaneously live apart from and celebrate the visual richness of the world around us. Though a pointed exception itself, the present lot, Green Black, 1968, came to life during the beginning of Kelly’s forays into two-panel pieces, as he sought to widen both his and the viewer’s chromatic vocabulary through establishing relationships between shape and color. Though most of Kelly’s uses of multiple colors resulted in respective panels for each hue, the present lot defies this trend; its chromatic split is a result of painterly precision rather than an assemblage of canvases. In allowing them to share a panel, Kelly eliminates the distance between the two colors. Besides his virtuosic display of technical brilliance, here Kelly tests us in the art of mental relaxation, as he dares the viewer to release our tendency to see an optical illusion. Often characterized as “hard-edge painting”—a critical term used to describe blocks of juxtaposed color—Kelly’s hand has always found its inspiration from environmental visual sources. However, even though Green Black, 1968 may trace its structural and chromatic ancestry to the natural world, Kelly’s pieces are wholly non-representational. It is in this elimination of meaning that Kelly yields his most profound power: “to objectify color and form and to distill its essence from the world of reality, drawing on human emotion, imagination, and spirit”(D. Waldman. Ellsworth Kelly New York, 1996, p. 38). The resultant work is an impersonal observation, and one that is deeply sensuous. Consequently, Kelly’s painting prompts an equally emotional response from the viewer. It is a technique not dissimilar from the work of Mark Rothko—they both seize the visceral capacity of pure color as a trigger for human sentiment. Green Black, 1968, composed of a single canvas on which two shapes are painted, rises before us into standing, vertical orient ation. Pitch black claims the left and top portions of the painting, lying atop the blazing lucid green of a subordinate parallelogram. The areas of Kelly’s pitch seem to be two adjoining parallelograms, resulting in a directional arrow that lends the piece a motion to the upper left. Kelly’s dividing line displays intimidating precision. Such a beautiful divide along with such dramatically distinct coloring gives the two shapes independence in relation to one another; there looms no threat of color over-lap or interplay. Kelly’s choice to render the two colors upon the same canvas allows his oils to share an edge rather than to have two. Upon closer inspection, the surface allows no hint at its formation, as Kelly’s brushstroke displays the pinnacle of its subtlety. Were we to observe Kelly’s work without the interference of our intellect, we would observe a tranquil chromatic friendship, one that suggests a mutual dependence, as if the dominant black and the
26 PROPERTY OF AN IMPORTANT MIDWEST COLLECTION Ellsworth Kelly Green Black 1968 oil on canvas 95 x 68 in. (241.3 x 172.7 cm) Initialed and dated “EK 68” on the reverse. Also signed and dated “Kelly 1968” on the stretcher.
Provenance Sidney Janis Gallery, New York Collection of Carter Burden, New York Sale: Sotheby Parke Bernet Inc., New York, Contemporary Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, May 15 and 16, 1980, lot 529 Acquired at the above sale by the present owner Exhibited New York, Sidney Janis Gallery, An Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture by Ellsworth Kelly October 7 – November 7, 1968, (cover illustration) New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, 1969 Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting, December 16, 1969 – February 1, 1970 Literature J. Coplans, Ellsworth Kelly 1971, pl. 205 (illustrated) Catalogue Essay In my painting, the painting is the subject rather than the subject, the painting. ELLSWORTH KELLY (Ellsworth Kelly quoted in Ellsworth Kelly Paintings and Sculptures: 1963-1979, Amsterdam, 1979, p. 34) Ellsworth Kelly’s work has given him unique status in the canon of great American Twentieth Century painters; his glorification of both shape and pure color has revolutionized the meaning of figurative expression. Kelly’s daring canvases aim for our most instinctual familiarities, as they simultaneously live apart from and celebrate the visual richness of the world around us. Though a pointed exception itself, the present lot, Green Black, 1968, came to life during the beginning of Kelly’s forays into two-panel pieces, as he sought to widen both his and the viewer’s chromatic vocabulary through establishing relationships between shape and color. Though most of Kelly’s uses of multiple colors resulted in respective panels for each hue, the present lot defies this trend; its chromatic split is a result of painterly precision rather than an assemblage of canvases. In allowing them to share a panel, Kelly eliminates the distance between the two colors. Besides his virtuosic display of technical brilliance, here Kelly tests us in the art of mental relaxation, as he dares the viewer to release our tendency to see an optical illusion. Often characterized as “hard-edge painting”—a critical term used to describe blocks of juxtaposed color—Kelly’s hand has always found its inspiration from environmental visual sources. However, even though Green Black, 1968 may trace its structural and chromatic ancestry to the natural world, Kelly’s pieces are wholly non-representational. It is in this elimination of meaning that Kelly yields his most profound power: “to objectify color and form and to distill its essence from the world of reality, drawing on human emotion, imagination, and spirit”(D. Waldman. Ellsworth Kelly New York, 1996, p. 38). The resultant work is an impersonal observation, and one that is deeply sensuous. Consequently, Kelly’s painting prompts an equally emotional response from the viewer. It is a technique not dissimilar from the work of Mark Rothko—they both seize the visceral capacity of pure color as a trigger for human sentiment. Green Black, 1968, composed of a single canvas on which two shapes are painted, rises before us into standing, vertical orient ation. Pitch black claims the left and top portions of the painting, lying atop the blazing lucid green of a subordinate parallelogram. The areas of Kelly’s pitch seem to be two adjoining parallelograms, resulting in a directional arrow that lends the piece a motion to the upper left. Kelly’s dividing line displays intimidating precision. Such a beautiful divide along with such dramatically distinct coloring gives the two shapes independence in relation to one another; there looms no threat of color over-lap or interplay. Kelly’s choice to render the two colors upon the same canvas allows his oils to share an edge rather than to have two. Upon closer inspection, the surface allows no hint at its formation, as Kelly’s brushstroke displays the pinnacle of its subtlety. Were we to observe Kelly’s work without the interference of our intellect, we would observe a tranquil chromatic friendship, one that suggests a mutual dependence, as if the dominant black and the
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