Book Description
An American artist of worldwide renown, Ellsworth Kelly has consistently returned to nature as a subject throughout his extraordinary career. Kelly began making prints in 1964; shortly thereafter he created his first suite of plant lithographs. To date he has produced 72 plant lithographs that fall into five major series: Suite of Plant Lithographs (1964–66); Leaves (1973–74); Twelve Leaves (1978); Series of Plant and Flower Lithographs (1983–85); Oak Leaves (1992); and several individual works. This comprehensive book serves as a beautiful portfolio of the plant lithographs accompanied by informative texts on all of these works as well as an insightful discussion of how they relate to the ink and pencil plant drawings that the artist has produced concurrently with the lithographs throughout his career.
Kelly has occupied the center stage of modernism since his early years in Paris in the 1950s. Distinguished for his abstract style of pure color and shape, Kelly believes that his art remains rooted in the natural world. In their simplicity of line and shape, his widely admired and accessible plant lithographs provide a critical link to the character of abstraction and are a remarkable achievement within the framework of Kelly’s lifetime of accomplishment.
About the Author
Richard H. Axsom is senior curator of prints and photographs at the Grand Rapids Art Museum and professor emeritus of art history, University of Michigan. He was coauthor of The Prints of Ellsworth Kelly: A Catalogue Raisonné, 1949–1985.
Drawn from Nature: The Plant Lithographs of Ellsworth Kelly FROM THE PUBLISHER
An American artist of worldwide renown, Ellsworth Kelly has consistently returned to nature as a subject throughout his extraordinary career. Kelly began making prints in 1964; shortly thereafter he created his first suite of plant lithographs. To date he has produced 72 plant lithographs that fall into five major series: Suite of Plant Lithographs (1964-66); Leaves (1973-74); Twelve Leaves (1978); Series of Plant and Flower Lithographs (1983-85); Oak Leaves (1992); and several individual works. This comprehensive book serves as a beautiful portfolio of the plant lithographs accompanied by informative texts on all of these works as well as an insightful discussion of how they relate to the ink and pencil plant drawings that the artist has produced concurrently with the lithographs throughout his career.
Kelly has occupied the center stage of modernism since his early years in Paris in the 1950s. Distinguished for his abstract style of pure color and shape, Kelly believes that his art remains rooted in the natural world. In their simplicity of line and shape, his widely admired and accessible plant lithographs provide a critical link to the character of abstraction and are a remarkable achievement within the framework of Kelly's lifetime of accomplishment.
FROM THE CRITICS
Library Journal
Ellsworth Kelly, although known as one of the principal postwar American abstract artists, never strayed far from organic shapes in any of his work. This interest in natural contours is not surprising in an artist who, while in the military, successfully requested assignment in the army's camouflage unit. Many who see his large canvases in museums are unaware that he's also a prolific printmaker. Kelly's best prints are the 72 plant lithographs reproduced here. A curator at the Grand Rapids Art Museum, which showed the lithographs this spring, Axsom (art history, emeritus, Univ. of Michigan) opens this exhibition catalog with an essay in which he aptly and astutely asserts the place these elegant line drawings have within the tradition of botanical illustration initiated by Leonardo da Vinci. He amplifies this by citing additional influences (e.g., Picasso, Mir , Brancusi) present in Kelly's other work. He notes how Kelly incorporates "fragments of vision" from the natural world into his better-known and ostensibly less representational art. When Axsom describes these depictions of cyclamens, camellias, oak leaves, and other plants as having "linear simplicity and classical beauty," he's absolutely right-some of these prints have an unwieldy, uncontrived elegance that truly approaches pure beauty. A compelling introduction to Kerry's lesser-known artwork, this is a worthy purchase for any library.-Douglas F. Smith, Oakland P.L., CA Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Art & Photography
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