LETTERS TO ELLSWORTH KELLY

SIGNED by JORDAN D. SCHNITZER

(Collector & Owner of these Artworks)

Edited by Richard Axsom

Published by Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation

Produced by Marquand Books, Seattle Washington  2012

This Large book is a HARDCOVER in Fine Condition with 152 pages and 150 photographs and illustrations of which most are in color.

The Dust Jacket is in Fine Condition.

SIZE = 12-1/4 inches x 11-1/2 inches  

SIGNED & DATED by JORDAN D. SCHNITZER

Interspersed throughout the book are plates of selected prints by Ellsworth Kelly from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and his Family Foundation. They reveal the evolving scope, diversity, and richness of Kelly's plant lithographs and abstract prints whose vibrant color wedded to emphatic shape has been at the core of Kelly's life work as a printmaker and as a painter and sculptor.

Letters to Ellsworth, a book on the artist Ellsworth Kelly, was edited by Richard H. Axsom with contributions by Stephanie Barron and Britt Salvesen, Roberta Bernstein, Siri Engberg, Sidney B. Felsen, Ruth Fine, Judith Goldman, Bruce Guenther, Agnes Gund, Dave Hickey, Sharon Coplan Hurowitz, David W. Kiehl, Jo Carole Lauder, Dorothy Lichtenstein, Matthew Marks, Bruce Porter, James Reid, Susan Sheehan, Jordan D. Schnitzer, Kenneth E.Tyler and Joni Moisant Weyl.

CONTENTS

Introduction by Richard H. Axsom

1. An Appreciation from Los Angeles by Stephanie Barron and Britt Salvesen

2. Celebrating Ellsworth, Celebrating the Moment by Roberta Bernstein

3. The Process of Seeing by Siri Engberg

4. Ellsworth Kelly Observed by Sidney B. Felsen

5. Dear Ellsworth by Ruth Fine

6. At Home with Wall by Judith Goldman

7. An Open Door by Bruce Guenther

8. The Beauty of Seeing through Ellsworth's Eyes by Agnes Gund

9. The Rivers, the Notepads, and the Accidental Fifties by Dave Hickey

10. Learning to See by Sharon Coplan Hurowitz

11. Lines of Tension and Other Observations from Ellsworth Kelly by David W. Kiehl

12. A Letter of Love by Jo Carole Lauder

13. Fond Memories by Dorothy Lichtenstein

14. My First Kelly by Matthew Marks

15.To Ellsworth by Bruce Porter

16. More than Ink on Paper by James Reid

17. For Ellsworth, in Appreciation by Susan Sheehan

18. Thanking You, Ellsworth by Kenneth E. Tyler

19. A Large Gray Curve (and Other Matters of the Heart) by Joni Moisant Weyl

20. Collector's Statement by Jordan D. Schnitzer

Contributors     

Checklist of Plates   

ABOUT THIS BOOK == For half a century, Ellsworth Kelly has been making prints that are integral to his art.  This anthology of personal tributes to Ellsworth Kelly is a companion volume to The Prints of Ellsworth Kelly: A Catalogue Raisonné (Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation, 2012).

Letters to Ellsworth gathers the reflections of men and women who have been close to Kelly and his art over the years. In many cases, the proximity has been to the artist's prints. Curators, art historians, publishers, printers, dealers, and collectors-all known to and in many instances friends of the artist-contribute personal essays on Kelly's prints, his art. The eighteen essays that make up this book, in one instance a photo essay, are memorable testaments to Kelly's art.

Authors write engagingly of curating and installing exhibitions, collaborating with the artist in the workshop, cataloguing his prints at an auction house, publishing them, representing and selling them, collecting and lending the prints to institutions, and even of acquiring their first print by Kelly.

Letters to Ellsworth offers an intimate look at the bonds between friends and artist unlike any other book on one of the most important artists of the 20th and 21st centuries.

MORE ABOUT == Ellsworth Kelly (May 31, 1923 – December 27, 2015) was an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker associated with hard-edge painting, Color Field painting and minimalism. His works demonstrate unassuming techniques emphasizing simplicity of form, similar to the work of John McLaughlin and Kenneth Noland. Kelly often employed bright colors. He lived and worked in Spencertown, New York.

Style == William Rubin noted that “Kelly’s development had been resolutely inner-directed: neither a reaction to Abstract Expressionism nor the outcome of a dialogue with his contemporaries.” Many of his paintings consist of a single (usually bright) color, with some canvases being of irregular shape, sometimes called "shaped canvases."

The quality of line seen in his paintings and in the form of his shaped canvases is very subtle, and implies perfection. This is demonstrated in his piece Block Island Study (1959).

Influences == Kelly’s background in the military has been suggested as a source of the seriousness of his works. While serving time in the army, Kelly was exposed to and influenced by the camouflage with which his specific battalion worked. This taught him about the use of form and shadow, as well as the construction and deconstruction of the visible.

It was fundamental to his early education as an artist. Ralph Coburn, a friend of Kelly's from Boston, introduced him to the technique of automatic drawing while visiting in Paris. Kelly embraced this technique of making an image without looking at the sheet of paper. These techniques helped Kelly in loosening his drawing style and broadened his acceptance of what he believed to be art. During his last year in Paris, Kelly was ill and also suffered depression; Sims thought that influenced his predominant use of black and white during that period.

Kelly's admiration for Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso are apparent in his work. He trained himself to view things in various ways and work in different mediums because of their inspiration. Piet Mondrian influenced the nonobjective forms he used in both his paintings and sculptures. Kelly was first influenced by the art and architecture of the Romanesque and Byzantine eras while he was studying in Paris. His introduction to Surrealism and Neo-Plasticism influenced his work and caused him to test the abstraction of geometric forms.

Curating = In 2014 Kelly organized a show of Matisse drawings at the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum in South Hadley, Massachusetts. In 2015, he curated "Monet/Kelly" at the Clark Art Institute.

PSYCHEDELIC  cannabis