Study for a Black and White Relief

Revered for his mastery of color and form, Ellsworth Kelly stuns with this elegant work in black and white. Velvety black abuts creamy white in equal length and weight, engendering a gentle struggle between forces of dark and light. For Kelly, these volumes are less an absence of color than an exploration of the underlying intensity out of which color functions. Often drawing inspiration from found visions of everyday life, Kelly’s black and white works, which comprise a fifth of his oeuvre and treat each of his common motifs, act as shadows of what once was. Study for a Black and White Relief (1952), however, prefigures what will be, recording the object’s imprint before its full realization. “Nothing is more specific than a shadow, but nothing is less specifiable once it is isolated from its context” (Y. A. Bois, in U. Wilmes, “Black and White,” in Ellsworth Kelly: Black & White, exh. cat., Haus der Kunst, Munich, 2011, p. 3). Thus, the present work offers an abstract glimpse not only of the “unilluminated” side of Kelly’s tangible subjects, but also a behind-the-scenes look at the artist’s conceptual method, inherent in which is all the vitality of an imagination bursting with color.