Zeit Contemporary Art company logo
Zeit Contemporary Art
Skip to main content
  • Menu
  • Artists
  • Projects
  • Viewing room
  • Press
  • Publications
  • Stories
  • Services
  • Fairs
  • About
  • Contact
Cart
0 items $
Checkout

Item added to cart

View cart & checkout
Continue shopping
Menu

Lilt, Joy and Clarity The Prints of Ellsworth Kelly

Past exhibition
14 October 2021 - 4 February 2022
  • Overview
  • Works
  • Installation Views
  • Press
  • Video
Ellsworth Kelly. Yellow Red-Orange, 1970. Color lithograph on special Arjomari paper, 35 1/4 x 36 1/4 in (89.5 x 92.1 cm). Image courtesy of Zeit Contemporary Art, New York
Ellsworth Kelly. Yellow Red-Orange, 1970. Color lithograph on special Arjomari paper, 35 1/4 x 36 1/4 in (89.5 x 92.1 cm). Image courtesy of Zeit Contemporary Art, New York
View works
Zeit Contemporary Art is pleased to present Lilt, Joy and Clarity: The Prints of Ellsworth Kelly, a project organized in close collaboration with Gemini G.E.L., featuring a selection of works from 1970 to 2013 that provide a unique perspective into Kelly's artistic practice with a particular focus on his later work. The visible emphasis on shape, color, surface, ground, and negative space are concerns which remained core to Kelly's oeuvre throughout the entirety of his career in every medium, but particularly present in his work as a printmaker.
 
Kelly refined his abstract formalist aesthetic in Paris in the postwar period and, along with many of his contemporaries, began to explore the possibilities of printmaking during the mid-60s. While Kelly had created prints by the time of his inclusion in the Metropolitan Museums of Art's  noteworthy New York Painting and Sculpture 1940-1970 exhibition, it was not until he found the print workshop Gemini G.E.L. that he began to really dedicate himself to exploring the myriad possibilities afforded by the medium in the early 1970s. The workshop constituted his collaborative place of choice as a result of their adventurous yet determined ethos, resulting in many technological innovations to create prints according to Kelly's exacting specifications.
 
A distinctive aspect of prints is their inherent flatness, resulting in the sensation of a certain presence that is different from that of encountering a three-dimensional object. In this way, prints take especially well to Kelly's language. When proofing, the artist first selected a shape derived from a form found in nature before carefully matching it to a color. Kelly was an exuberant colorist, sometimes requiring multiple gallons of ink to create just the right hue for the color he had in mind. Not shy when it came to size, the prints encompass a range of 12 x 9 in. to 5 x 13 ft, and in some cases a series could take years to complete. As is evident in this selection, all of these perceptive decisions ultimately result in the sensation of a quiet yet pulsating strength. No matter the challenge, Kelly and Gemini G.E.L. always found a solution to bring Kelly's artistic vision to fruition. This online viewing room thus acts as an ode to the collaborations that led to these enduring works of art.
 
Launch Viewing Room
 
Download Press Release

Related artist

  • Ellsworth Kelly

    Ellsworth Kelly

Back to exhibitions

Sign up to our mailing list

Submit

* denotes required fields

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

590 Madison Ave, 21st Floor

New York, NY 10022

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

contact@zeitcontemporaryart.com

+1 (212) 401-0063

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Instagram, opens in a new tab.
Facebook, opens in a new tab.
LinkedIn, opens in a new tab.
Artsy, opens in a new tab.
Artnet, opens in a new tab.
Vimeo, opens in a new tab.
Manage cookies
©2023 Zeit Contemporary Art
Site by Artlogic

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Manage cookies
Accept

Cookie preferences

Check the boxes for the cookie categories you allow our site to use

Cookie options
Required for the website to function and cannot be disabled.
Improve your experience on the website by storing choices you make about how it should function.
Allow us to collect anonymous usage data in order to improve the experience on our website.
Allow us to identify our visitors so that we can offer personalised, targeted marketing.
Save preferences