Exhibition tour includes:

Westfälisches Landesmuseum, Münster, Germany
June 14 – August 23, 1992

National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
November 1, 1992 – January 24, 1993

Ellsworth Kelly: The Years in France, 1948-1954 reviews the years during which this artist achieved his mature style. Taking advantage of the G.l. Bill, Kelly worked in Paris and traveled in France, becoming familiar with the contemporary art scene in addition to discovering the visual stimuli of Romanesque and Byzantine art. During these years he produced a vast number of drawings. It was these drawings that led him to state that “instead of creating an interpretive picture of a thing I’d seen or of an imaginary subject matter-I took an object and ‘presented’ it simply as itself.”

This publication serves as a catalogue raisonné of Kelly’s paintings during the six years covered by the exhibition. Included with the paintings will be some seventy-plus drawings, many of which served as studies for the pictures. They reveal the role of collage in the artist’s work. Augmenting these images are a series of photographs taken by Kelly.

Alfred Pacquement of the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, and Jack Cowart of the National Gallery of Art, have organized the exhibition. The accompanying catalogues for each venue include texts by Pacquement and Cowart as well as Yves-Alain Bois. It also includes a detailed chronology by Nathalie Brunet. This publication serves as a catalogue raisonné of Kelly’s paintings during the six years covered by the exhibition.

This exhibition of works by Ellsworth Kelly exemplifies the proposition that in the late 1940s contemporary artists found new voices and visions in response to a new, postwar world. Kelly’s years in France, from 1948 to 1954, were marked by profound personal and stylistic discoveries, the result of his pursuit of a broader understanding of our shared European cultural heritage, mixed with an American spirit of adventure. He matured quickly to become the remarkable artist we know and so admire today.

We are delighted to be able to join with the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume in Paris to present this first comprehensive exhibition and catalogue of Kelly’s paintings, low-relief sculpture, and works on paper from his years in France. Our two cities share not only the status of political capitals, but also the cultural ideals that made possible Ellsworth Kelly’s critical awakening.

– J. Carter Brown, Director Emeritus, National Gallery of Art, Foreword to the catalogue of the exhibition