Characterized by precise shapes rendered in bold, flat colors, Ellsworth Kelly’s art encompasses painting, sculpture and works on paper, drawing on careful observations of light and shadow, negative space and line and form. In painting shapes—like a tennis court, a smokestack on a tugboat, or the roof of a barn—as flat planes of color, Kelly removed their dimensionality and turned reality into abstraction. He was also one of the first artists to create shaped canvases and to integrate art with modern architecture, taking great care about the size of a painting, its boundaries, and its placement in relation to the walls and floor.
The 20 stamps on the sheet feature 10 of Kelly’s artworks, each represented twice: “Yellow White” (1961), “Colors for a Large Wall” (1951), “Blue Red Rocker” (1963), “Spectrum I” (1953), “South Ferry” (1956), “Blue Green” (1962), “Orange Red Relief” (for Delphine Seyrig) (1990), “Meschers” (1951), “Red Blue” (1964), and “Gaza” (1956). A detail from “Blue Yellow Red III” (1971) appears in the selvage.
Art Director Derry Noyes designed the stamps.
The 20 stamps on the sheet feature 10 of Kelly’s artworks, each represented twice: “Yellow White” (1961), “Colors for a Large Wall” (1951), “Blue Red Rocker” (1963), “Spectrum I” (1953), “South Ferry” (1956), “Blue Green” (1962), “Orange Red Relief” (for Delphine Seyrig) (1990), “Meschers” (1951), “Red Blue” (1964), and “Gaza” (1956). A detail from “Blue Yellow Red III” (1971) appears in the selvage.
Art Director Derry Noyes designed the stamps.