The Plant Lithographs of Ellsworth Kelly

 

Through June 8

 

Recognized as a master of modernist abstraction, Ellsworth Kelly is also one of the great draftsmen of our age. Drawing has always informed his art, from the beginning of his career in the late 1940s to the present. Representational in style, Kelly’s drawings include portraits, self-portraits, and simple line drawings of fruits, flowers, and plants.  Kelly’s abstraction is grounded in nature and the “plant drawings” have been, in his own words, “a bridge to my abstract work in painting and sculpture.”

Kelly’s preferred media for the plant drawings are pencil, pen and ink, and lithograhic crayon. He prizes each medium for its unique qualities. For the prints, Kelly draws his subject with crayon on decal paper. The finished drawing is then transferred to an aluminum plate. Processed and inked, the plate is the basis for the production of the final lithograph on paper.