Ellsworth Kelly is regarded as one of the most important abstract painters, sculptors and printmakers of his time. Spanning seven decades, his career was marked by the independent route he took from any formal school or art movement and by his innovative contribution to twentieth-century painting and sculpture. Kelly drew on the connection between abstraction and nature from which he extrapolated forms and colors. From the beginning of his career, Kelly emphasized pure form and color. His impulse to suppress gesture in favor of creating spatial unity has played a pivotal role in the development of abstract art in America.
Kelly’s first one-man exhibition was at the Galerie Arnaud in Paris in 1951. His retrospective exhibitions include Ellsworth Kelly at The Museum of Modern Art in 1973; Ellsworth Kelly Recent Paintings and Sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1979; Ellsworth Kelly Sculpture in 1982 at the Whitney Museum of American Art and Saint Louis Art Museum; and Ellsworth Kelly: A Retrospective in 1996 at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Tate, London and the Haus der Kunst in Munich.
Recent exhibitions include Ellsworth Kelly Black and White at the Haus der Kunst and the Museum Wiesbaden; Ellsworth Kelly Plant Drawings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Louisiana Museum of Art, Humlebaek and the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; Ellsworth Kelly: Sculpture on the Wall at the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia; and Ellsworth Kelly: The Chatham Series at The Museum of Modern Art; Monet | Kelly at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, and Ellsworth Kelly Last Paintings at Matthew Marks Gallery.
Kelly has received honorary doctoral degrees from Pratt Institute, Bard College, Harvard University, Williams College, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Brandeis University, and the Royal College of Art, London. Among numerous awards received are Japan’s Praemium Imperiale Award in 2000, Officier de la Legion d’Honneur presented by President of France Nicolas Sarkozy in 2009, and the National Medal of Arts presented by President of the United States Barack Obama in 2012.
1923
Born Newburgh, New York, May 31.
1941-42
Studies at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York.
1943
Drafted into the United States Army; serves in 603rd Camouflage Engineer Battalion.
1944-45
To England, Normandy landings and invasion of Europe. Visits Paris for the first time.
1946-48
Studies drawing and painting at the Boston Museum School. Lives and teaches art at Norfolk House Center, Roxbury, Massachusetts, spring 1948
Exhibits in first group show at Boris Mirski Gallery in Boston, Massachusetts, spring of 1948.
Travels to France and works there until June, 1954.
1948-49
Visits Gruenwald’s altarpiece in Colmar and sites of Romanesque painting and sculpture. Paints in Brittany during Summer of 1949. Completes the first multi-panel painting.
Studies at the École des Beaux Arts, Paris, France. Lives in Hôtel de Bourgogne on Île de Saint-Louis. Paints his first abstract painting, spring 1949. Meets Michel Seuphor and Jean Arp in Paris. Spends first winter in the South at Sanary and Antibes. Employed by Marshall Plan at the Hôtel de Talleyrand, Paris.
1950-51
Exhibits in first group show in Europe at Galerie Beaux-Arts. Other group shows include Palais des Beaux Arts de la Ville de Paris, Salon des Réalités Nouvelles and Galerie Maeght, all in Paris, France.
Teaches at the American School, Paris, France. Visits the studios of Brancusi, Vantongerloo, Picabia, Magnelli, Arp and Sophie Tauber-Arp.
First solo exhibition, Kelly, peintures et reliefs at Galerie Arnaud in Paris, spring 1951.
1951-52
Paints in the south of France.
1952
Visits Monet’s studio at Giverny and sees all the late Nymphéas. Meets Alexander Calder, Alberto Giacometti and Joan Miro.
1954
Returns to the United States and moves into studio on Broad Street in lower Manhattan, New York.
1956
First solo exhibition in the United States, Ellsworth Kelly, paintings 1951-1956 at Betty Parsons Gallery, New York (also 1957, 1959, 1961 and 1963).
Settles into Coenties Slip studio where he meets Agnes Martin, Robert Indiana and James Rosenquist.
1957
First sculpture commission for lobby of the Transportation Building, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (later titled Sculpture for a Large Wall).
Begins collaboration with Edison Price on fabrication of sculpture.
First museum purchase, painting, Atlantic, by Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
1958
Solo exhibition, Ellsworth Kelly at Galerie Maeght in Paris (also 1964 and 1965).
1959
Exhibits first sculpture at Betty Parsons Gallery, New York.
Included in Sixteen Americans, The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
1961
Receives Fourth Painting Prize, Carnegie International Exhibition, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
1962
Receives Flora Mayer Witkowsky Prize, The Art Institute of Chicago.
First solo exhibition, Ellsworth Kelly in England at Arthur Tooth and Sons, London.
First acquisition by museum in the United Kingdom, the Tate Gallery acquires the painting, Broadway.
1963-64
Receives Brandeis Creative Arts Award, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts.
Receives Education Minister’s Award, Seventh International Art Exhibition, Tokyo, Japan.
Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings by Ellsworth Kelly at Washington Gallery of Modern Art, Washington, D.C. and at Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston.
1964
Receives Painting Prize, Carnegie International Exhibition, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
1965
Publishes two groups of lithographs with Maeght Éditeur, Paris, Suite of Twenty-Seven Color Lithographs and Suite of Twenty-Six Plant Lithographs.
An Exhibition of Recent Paintings by Ellsworth Kelly, first solo exhibition at Sidney Janis Gallery, New York (also 1967, 1968, and 1971).
1966
Selected by curator Henry Geldzahler for the U.S. Pavilion at the XXXIII International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy.
Ellsworth Kelly, first solo exhibition in Los Angeles at Ferus Gallery (becomes Irving Blum Gallery, exhibitions in 1967, 1968, and 1973).
1967
First purchase by European museum, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, acquires sculpture Blue Red Rocker
1968
Begins working with Don Lippincott on fabrication of sculpture.
1969
Mural commissioned by UNESCO, Paris, France.
1970
Moves to upstate New York.
Begins printmaking collaboration with Gemini, G.E.L., Los Angeles.
1972
The Chatham Series: Paintings by Ellsworth Kelly at Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York.
1973
First solo exhibition at Leo Castelli Gallery, New York (also 1977, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1988, 1989, and 1992).
Ellsworth Kelly, first retrospective exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Pasadena Art Museum (now Norton Simon Museum of Art), Pasadena, California; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan.
1974
Awarded Painting Prize by the Art Institute of Chicago.
Elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters (now the National Academy of Arts and Letters).
1975
First solo show at Blum Helman Gallery (also 1977, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1992 and 1998).
1976
Begins printmaking collaboration with Tyler Graphics in Katonah, New York.
1977
Begins collaboration with Peter Carlson in California of fabrication of wood and metal sculpture.
1979
Ellsworth Kelly Recent Paintings and Sculpture, is the first solo exhibition presented at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Exhibits with Jasper Johns, Willem de Kooning, Roy Lichtenstein and Robert Rauschenberg in XXXVI American Biennial of Contemporary American Painting at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Color Panels for a Large Wall, commissioned for the new Central Trust Company of Cincinnati, Ohio designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill.
Friends of the Park commission a 36-foot sculpture, Curve XXII, for Lincoln Park in Chicago, Illinois.
Ellsworth Kelly, Paintings and Sculpture 1963-1979 presented at Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Hayworth Gallery, London; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; and Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden, Germany.
1980
Made a fellow of Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island.
1981
Receives sculpture award from Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine.
1982
Ellsworth Kelly: Sculpture, first sculpture retrospective, at Whitney Museum of American Art, New York and The Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri.
1983
Untitled (rocker), sculpture commissioned by Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas.
Sculpture installed at Mies Van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House in Plano, Illinois.
1984
A room of seven paintings at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (loan is extended until 1987).
1985
Crueta del Coll and The Barcelona Sculpture at Moragues Plaza, sculptures for El Parc de la Creueta del Coll and General Moragues Plaza commissioned by the City of Barcelona, Spain.
1986
A room of eight paintings for the inaugural opening at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
Houston Triptych, sculpture commissioned for the Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas.
Red Curve, sculpture commissioned by architect I. M. Pei for Raffles Hotel, Singapore.
1987
Ellsworth Kelly: Works on Paper at Fort Worth Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada; The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California; and Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri.
Ellsworth Kelly: A Print Retrospective, at The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan; Huntsville Museum of Art, Huntsville, Alabama; Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa; Neuberger Museum, State University of New York, Purchase, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California; Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, Massachusetts; Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire; and University Art Museum, Berkeley, California.
Awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Republic at the French Cultural Embassy, New York.
1988
Double Curve, sculpture in bronze commissioned for sculpture garden at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Untitled, sculpture commissioned for the Ryda and Robert H. Levi Sculpture Garden, The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland.
1989
Ellsworth Kelly: Courtyard Installation at The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.
Dallas Panels, sculpture commissioned by I. M. Pei for the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, Dallas, Texas.
Ellsworth Kelly Works on Paper at Overholland Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
1990
Curates “Fragmentation and the Single Form,” exhibition for the Artist’s Choice Series at The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Installation of Yellow Curve, first large-scale floor sculpture, at Portikus, Frankfurt, Germany.
Sculpture commission for corporate headquarters of Nestlé S.A., Vevey, Switzerland.
1991
Ellsworth Kelly: At Right Angles, 1964-66 at Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles, John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, and Paula Cooper Gallery, New York.
1992
Room installation of paintings at Documenta IX, Kassel, Germany, acquired by the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich, Germany.
Ellsworth Kelly: The Years in France, 1948-1954, curated by Yve-Alain Bois at Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume in Paris; Westfälisches Landesmuseum, Münster, Germany; and National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Awarded the Officier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Republic, Paris, France.
Ellsworth Kelly Plant Drawings, first solo exhibition at Matthew Marks Gallery, New York (also 1994, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2001).
Blue Floor Panel for Leo, first large-scale floor piece in America at Leo Castelli Gallery, New York.
1993
Presented the Chevalier de Legion d’Honneur by the French Republic at the French Embassy in Washington, D.C.
Gaul, sculpture commissioned for Carré d’Art, Musée d’Art Contemporain, Nîmes, France.
Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain, acquires room of four paintings for permanent collection.
Presented with the Institute Medal, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York.
Awarded Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts by Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York.
New Displays: Ellsworth Kelly at Tate Gallery, London, England.
Awarded title of Friend of Barcelona and medal by H. E. Pasqual Maragall, Mayor of Barcelona, in New York.
1994
Room installation of six paintings and one sculpture for the Eli Broad Family Foundation in Santa Monica, California.
Curve VIII in Twentieth Century American Sculpture at the White House, inaugural sculpture installation at the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden, White House, Washington, D.C.
Presented 50th Anniversary Medal of the Jubilee of Liberty by the Governor of Normandy and the President of the Regional Council of Basse-Normandy, France.
1995
Boston Panels sculpture commissioned for John J. Moakely Federal Courthouse, Boston, Massachusetts (completed in 1998).
Tate Gallery, London, England, acquires two paintings and a sculpture for the museum’s permanent collection.
1996
Honored by Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York at the Mary Buckley Scholarship Dinner.
The Red and the Black, sculpture commissioned for Tokyo International Forum, Tokyo, Japan.
Elected a Fellow of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, New York.
Awarded Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts by Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.
Awarded the first Medal for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts on the 125th anniversary of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts.
Ellsworth Kelly: A Retrospective curated by Diane Waldman Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Tate Gallery, London; and Haus der Kunst, Munich.
1997
Presentation of print edition to Friends of Art and Preservation in Embassies at White House ceremony, Washington, D.C.
Presented with Annual Tribute Award of the Friends of Art and Preservation in Embassies, U.S. State Department, Washington, D.C.
Awarded Honorary Doctorate by Royal College of Art, London, England.
Included in inaugural exhibition of Sintra Museu de Arte Moderno, Lisbon, Portugal.
Included in inaugural exhibition of Fondation Beyeler, Basel, Switzerland.
Installation at Ambassador’s Residence, American Embassy, Paris, France.
Included in inaugural exhibition of Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain.
1998
Ellsworth Kelly: On the Roof, at The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Berlin Panels, sculpture commissioned for Paul-Löbe-Haus, Deutscher Bundestag, Berlin, Germany (completed in 2002).
Ellsworth Kelly, Sculpture for a Large Wall, 1957 at Matthew Marks Gallery, New York (acquired by The Museum of Modern Art, New York).
Ellsworth Kelly: Recent Prints, at Boston University Art Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts; New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut; Newcomb Gallery of Art, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana; and Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Omaha, Nebraska.
Four Paintings: Black with Color at Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Awarded New York State Governor’s Arts Award by New York State Council on the Arts at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theatre, New York.
1999
Ellsworth Kelly: The Early Drawings 1948-1955, at Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; The Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Switzerland; Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich; and Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany.
Ellsworth Kelly in conversation with Marla Prather, 1999 Elson Lecture at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Ellsworth Kelly: Spectrums at Mitchell-Innes & Nash Gallery in New York.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art acquires 21 paintings and sculptures.
Ellsworth Kelly: Five Decades of Line, Form and Color at the Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, Delaware.
Ellsworth Kelly – “Sculpture for a Large Wall” and Other Recent Acquisitions at The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Awarded The Edward MacDowell Medal at The MacDowell Colony, St. Peterborough, New Hampshire.
The Art Institute of Chicago acquires Chicago Panels, six wall sculpture panels installed in the Rice Wing of the museum.
Spectrum IV acquired by The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Twentieth Century Sculpture in the White House: A View from Denver, exhibition organized by the Denver Art Museum, in the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden at The White House, Washington, D.C.
Ellsworth Kelly: Selections from his Archives at Archives of American Art Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, New York. Receives Smithsonian Institution Award at Archives of American Art: A Salute to Ellsworth Kelly.
2000
Included in inaugural exhibition of the Tate Modern, London.
Included in La sculpture contemporaine au jardin des Tuileries, the inaugural exhibition of the Tuileries, Paris.
Presented Praemium Imperiale for Painting by the Japan Art Association on behalf of the Japanese Imperial Family in Tokyo.
2001
The Museum of Modern Art, New York acquires Line Form Color, forty drawings from the 1951 proposed artist book.
Appointed Honorary Academician of the Royal Academy of Arts, London.
Artist Honoree, Cultural Leadership Award of the American Federation of Arts, New York.
Blue Black, sculpture commissioned by the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis, Missouri.
2002
Henri Matisse / Ellsworth Kelly: plant drawings at Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris and The Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri.
Selected Works by Ellsworth Kelly from Saint Louis Collections at the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, St. Louis, Missouri.
Presented Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres by the French Republic.
Whitney Museum of American Art acquires four works for the permanent collection, La Combe I, 1950, Red Blue, 1964, Yellow White, 1966, and Yellow on Blue, 2001.
Ellsworth Kelly: Tablet 1948-1973 exhibited at The Drawing Center, New York and Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Ellsworth Kelly in San Francisco at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Ellsworth Kelly: Works 1956-2002 at the Fondation Beyeler in Riehen/Basel, Switzerland.
2003
Ellsworth Kelly: Red Green Blue, Paintings and Studies 1958-1965 at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego travels to Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
Ellsworth Kelly Matrix and Ellsworth Kelly: Self Portrait Drawings from 1944-1992 at Matthew Marks Gallery, New York.
Beijing Panels, sculpture commissioned by Foundation of Art and Preservation for United States Embassy, Beijing, China. Architectural model for Beijing Panels presented to First Lady Laura Bush at The White House, Washington, D.C.
The Menil Collection, Houston acquires Tablet, 188 pages of sketches.
Whitney Museum of American Art Gala celebrates the artist’s 80th birthday.
Awarded Honorary Doctorate, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
2004
Ellsworth Kelly in Dallas at Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas.
Robert Ryman, Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Gerhard Richter at The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.
2005
Ellsworth Kelly: 1948-1973 at The Menil Collection, Houston.
Drawn from Nature, The Plant Lithographs of Ellsworth Kelly at the Grand Rapids Art Museum, Grand Rapids, Michigan; Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, New Hampshire; Tate St. Ives, Cornwall, England; AXA Gallery, New York, New York; Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo, Seville, Spain; and Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon.
Awarded Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts, Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts.
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. acquires Color Panels for a Large Wall, 1978.
Blue Green Red, sculpture commissioned for museum lobby designed by architect Renzo Piano by the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia.
2006
Ellsworth Kelly at St. Ives at Tate St. Ives, Cornwall, England.
Ellsworth Kelly at Serpentine Gallery, London, England.
Ellsworth Kelly Paris – New York 1949-1954 at Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In Cézanne: mythe et pélerins at Galerie d’art du Conseil Général des Bouches du Rhône, Marseilles in Aix-en-Provence.
2007
Focus: Ellsworth Kelly at The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Front Room: Ellsworth Kelly at the Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland.
Selected by curator Robert Storr for the 52nd International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy.
Ellsworth Kelly: Fragments, film premiere by Checkerboard Film Foundation.
Receives Lifetime Achievement Award by Americans for the Arts, New York.
In Art in America: Three Hundred Years of Innovation at Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain.
In Currents: Recent Acquisitions at Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.
2008
In Broad Contemporary Art Museum Inaugural Exhibition at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California.
Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies commissions sculpture Berlin Totem for the U.S. Embassy in Berlin, Germany.
In Color Chart: Reinventing Color, 1950 to Today at The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
In Fernand Léger Retrospective at Fondation Beyeler in Riehen/Basel, Switzerland.
Sculpture commisoned for The Leonore and Walter Annenberg Award for Diplomacy Through the Arts by Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies, Washington DC.
Ellsworth Kelly Plant Lithographs at Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland.
In Correspondances: Ellsworth Kelly / Paul Cézanne at Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
In 75 Years of Looking Forward at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Receives Distinguished Achievement Award from the American Society of the French Legion of Honor.
2009
In Cézanne and Beyond at Philadelphia Museum of Art.
White Curve, sculpture commissioned by The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois for terrace of the new wing designed by Renzo Piano.
Ellsworth Kelly: Diagonal at Matthew Marks Gallery, New York.
Promoted to the rank of Officier by the French Republic.
Ellsworth Kelly: Drawings 1954-1964 at Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Middlesbrough, England and at The Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin, Ireland.
In Monet and Abstraction at Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, Spain.
In John Cage & Experimental Art: the Anarchy of Silence at Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona, Spain.
Awarded Honorary Doctorate of Fine Art from the School of The Art Institute of Chicago.
In On Line: Drawing Through the 20th Century at The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
2011
Ellsworth Kelly: Reliefs 2009 – 2010 and Ellsworth Kelly Drawings 1954-1962 at Matthew Marks Gallery, New York.
In Malevich and the American Legacy at Gagosian Gallery, New York.
Ellsworth Kelly Black & White at the Haus der Kunst, Munich and Museum Wiesbaden, Wiesbaden, Germany.
Ellsworth Kelly Plant Drawings at the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich and the Louisiana Museum of Art in Humlebæk, Denmark.
Awarded 2011 Jawlensky Prize for Painting by the Museum Wiesbaden. Donates award funds to the museum’s conservation department to restore The Wiesbaden Visitation (c.1520) by Alberto Piazza da Lodi (Meister der Wiesbadener Heimsuchung).
2012
Black Bar for a Wall, sculpture commissioned by Matthew Marks for façade of his gallery’s new building in Los Angeles. Ellsworth Kelly Los Angeles at Matthew Marks Gallery is the inaugural show.
First solo exhibition at Galerie Marian Goodman, Paris.
Inaugural relaunch of the revueCahiers d’Art includes special feature and solo exhibition of paintings, prints and ancient bannerstones and birdstones from the artist’s collection at Cahiers d’Art, Paris.
Ellsworth Kelly: Prints and Paintings at Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Ellsworth Kelly Sculpture at the Morgan Library and Museum, New York.
In Fresh Window. The Window in Art since Matisse and Duchamp at Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Germany.
The Prints of Ellsworth Kelly: A Catalogue Raisonné, Volumes I and II, a second edition by Rick Axsom published by The Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation and Marquand, Seattle.
Dartmouth Panels, sculpture commissioned by Leon and Debra Black for a new auditorium at Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire.
Barnes Totem sculpture commissioned by the Barnes Foundation for the grounds of the Barnes new museum in Philadelphia.
2013
Receives College Art Association Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Collaborates with Calvin Klein and Metropolitan Museum Costume Institute to reproduce his 1951 dress as a special edition.
Ellsworth Kelly: Singular Forms 1966-2009 at Mnuchin Gallery, New York.
Ellsworth Kelly at Ninety at Matthew Marks Gallery, New York.
Ellsworth Kelly: Chatham Series at The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Ellsworth Kelly Sculpture on the Wall is first contemporary exhibition at the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia.
Ellsworth Kelly: Panel Paintings 2004-2009 at the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C.
Presented National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama at the White House.
Awarded Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts.
2014
Color Panels (Red Yellow Blue Green Purple) and Spectrum VIII commissioned by Bernard Arnault for auditorium of Fondation Louis Vuitton museum designed by architect Frank Gehry in Paris’s Bois de Boulogne.
Monet | Kelly curated by Kelly at Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts.
Matisse Drawings curated by Ellsworth Kelly at Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, South Hadley, Massachusetts.
Presented the Hadrian Award by the World Monuments Fund in New York.
2015
Ellsworth Kelly: Outside In at Matthew Marks Gallery, New York.
Austin, a building designed by Kelly with colored-glass windows, an 18-foot redwood totem, and a series of fourteen black-and-white marble wall panels, is commissioned by The University of Texas at Austin for the Blanton’s permanent collection. The artist’s architectural plans for Austin presented by Kelly as a gift to the Blanton Museum of Art.
Awarded on its 50th anniversary the James Smithson Bicentennial Medal by the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Ellsworth Kelly Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings, Reliefs and Sculpture, 1940-1953, Volume 1 by Yve-Alain Bois is published by Cahiers d’Art, Paris. The catalogue is awarded the first Pierre Daix Prize by François Pinault.
Ellsworth Kelly, the first monograph since 1971, is published by Phaidon, London
Ellsworth Kelly dies in his home in Spencertown, New York on December 27th.
2016
First solo exhibition dedicated to photographs, Ellsworth Kelly Photographs at Matthew Marks Gallery, New York.
Ellsworth Kelly Anthology at Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar, the museum’s inaugural exhibition.
Awarded the J. Paul Getty Museum Medal posthumously by James Cuno, President of the J. Paul Getty Trust.
2017
Ellsworth Kelly Last Paintings and Ellsworth Kelly Plant Drawings at Matthew Marks Gallery, New York.
