1951: Kelly poses with recent paintings in his very first solo exhibition, Kelly peintures et reliefs, at Galerie Arnaud in Paris
Photo courtesy and © Ellsworth Kelly Foundation
1955: Kelly poses with recent paintings inside his studio on Broad Street in Lower Manhattan
Photo courtesy and © Ellsworth Kelly Foundation
1969: Kelly (centre) speaks with the curator Henry Geldzahler (left) and Metropolitan Museum of Art curator James Wood (right) during the installation of Kelly’s exhibition New York Painting and Sculpture: 1940-1970 at the museum
Photo courtesy and © Ellsworth Kelly Foundation
1973: Kelly at work in his Chatham, New York, studio. The artist had relocated upstate from New York City in 1970, renting out a space that had previously been a theatre, where he created one of his breakthrough bodies of work, the Chatham series
Photo by Gianfranco Gorgoni, courtesy and © Ellsworth Kelly Foundation
1990: Kelly with his Yellow Curve-Portikus (1990), installed on the gallery floor, at Portikus in Frankfurt, Germany
Photo by Jack Shear, courtesy and © Ellsworth Kelly Foundation
1992: Kelly walks around Red Floor Panel (1992), one of the monumental floor paintings he began making two years before, seen here during its debut exhibition at the Westfälischer Kunstverein in Münster, Germany
Photo courtesy and © Ellsworth Kelly Foundation
1994: Kelly and his cat reading outdoors Jack Shear. Courtesy Ellsworth Kelly Studio. © Ellsworth Kelly Foundation
2011: Kelly in his studio in Spencertown, New York. Two years later, he received the National Medal of Arts from president Barack Obama. The artist died at his home, also in Spencertown, in December 2015, aged 92
Photo by Jack Shear, courtesy and © Ellsworth Kelly Foundation
1951: Kelly poses with recent paintings in his very first solo exhibition, Kelly peintures et reliefs, at Galerie Arnaud in Paris
Photo courtesy and © Ellsworth Kelly Foundation
1955: Kelly poses with recent paintings inside his studio on Broad Street in Lower Manhattan
Photo courtesy and © Ellsworth Kelly Foundation
As Ellsworth Kelly’s 100th birthday (31 May) approaches, major institutions are paying tribute to the master of hard-edged abstraction: the Museum of Modern Art’s Ellsworth Kelly A Centennial Celebration continues until 11 June, the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Ellsworth Kelly: Reflections on Water and Other Early Drawings continues until 1 December and Glenstone in Potomac, Maryland, has just opened Ellsworth Kelly at 100 (until March 2024).
The late artist’s partner of many years, Jack Shear, marked the occasion last month by donating 146 of Kelly’s works to 19 different museums. Appropriately, Shear, who serves as the executive director of the Ellsworth Kelly Foundation, will be on hand at Tefaf New York on 12 May to participate in a panel about succession planning for artists and collectors. On the occasion of Kelly’s centenary, the artist’s foundation has given The Art Newspaper access to a trove of historical photos documenting his life and work in New York and beyond.