Train Landscape

Ellsworth KellyWW-1953-135091

1953·Oil on canvas; three joined panels·111.8 × 111.8 cm (44 × 44 in.)

<p>Ellsworth Kelly explored the fundamentals of color, line, and form, yet the basis of his abstraction always lay in his observations of natural and built environments. <em>Train Landscape</em>, which Kelly made during his formative years in Paris (from 1948 to 1954), draws its vivid colors from nature. The title refers to fields of lettuce, spinach, and mustard that the young artist viewed from a train while speeding through the French countryside—this perceptual blur here pushed to the extreme of a flat, pristine monochrome. The multipanel composition emphasizes the status of the painting as an object on the wall, with a shape, density, and heft of its own.</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1953
Medium: Oil on canvas; three joined panels
Dimensions: 111.8 × 111.8 cm (44 × 44 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Ellsworth Kelly

Artist

Ellsworth Kelly

Sculpture

Ellsworth Kelly was an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker associated with hard-edge painting, Color field painting and minimalism. His works demonstrate unassuming techniques emphasizing line, color and form, similar to the work of John McLaughlin and Kenneth Noland. Kelly often employed bright colors. He lived and worked in Spencertown, New York.

Newburgh, NY, USA

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