Kelly, Ellsworth

Kelly, Ellsworth (1923– ). American painter, sculptor, and printmaker, born in Newburgh, New York. He studied at the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, 1941–2, and then after service in the US Army at the Boston Museum School, 1946–8. From 1948 to 1954 he lived in Paris, then settled in New York. In 1949 he switched from figurative to abstract art and in the mid1950s he became recognized as one of the leading exponents of the Hard-Edge style that was one of the successors to Abstract Expressionism. His paintings are characteristically very clear and simple in construction, sometimes consisting of a number of individual panels placed together, identical in size but each painted a different uniform colour (he started using this formula in 1952). He was also one of the first artists to develop the idea of the shaped canvas. His work has been widely exhibited and he has had numerous public commissions, including a mural for Unesco in Paris (1969). Kelly has also made prints in various techniques and has worked as a sculptor (using painted cut-out metal forms—often industrially manufactured—related to those in his paintings).