DOHA: Qatar Museums (QM) has announced the 'Ellsworth Kelly at 100', a major exhibition commemorating the late artist's seven-decade career and the first retrospective of his work in the MENASA region.
The exhibition will feature nearly 70 works drawn from Glenstone's collection and those of major international museum lenders.
Organised by Glenstone Museum (Maryland, US), the exhibition marks what would have been the artist's 100th birthday in 2023 and is one of the largest retrospectives of Kelly's work in the 21st century. The presentation will be on view at M7, Qatar's epicentre for innovation and entrepreneurship in design, fashion, and technology, from October 31 to February 2025.
Works on view will span the wide range of media in which the artist worked, from painting and sculpture to works on paper, collage, and photography.
Highlights include formative early paintings such as Painting for a White Wall, 1952, a groundbreaking work composed of joined monochromatic panels, and Painting in Three Panels, 1956, a key example of Kelly's engagement with architecture. These early works will be on view alongside examples from the now canonical Chatham and Spectrum series.
A selection of the plant drawings Kelly created throughout his career will feature prominently, alongside a selection of rarely exhibited photographs.
Director of M7, Maha Ghanim Al Sulaiti, said, "By refining his craft over the course of seventy years, Ellsworth Kelly showed how paying close attention to the seemingly simplest things can yield marvelous insights. Our mission with Ellsworth Kelly at 100 at M7 is to spark the same kind of excitement and curiosity in our visitors that guided him over the course of his career. We hope that Kelly's pared-down forms and bright, bold colours will inspire local and visiting audiences to pay closer attention to the creativity that marks the world around them."
Director and Co-Founder of Glenstone, Emily Wei Rales, said, "At Glenstone Museum, we present art that fundamentally alters the ways we see the world. Few artists have done so with as much grace and elegance as Ellsworth Kelly, and it is an honour to collaborate with Qatar Museums to introduce this groundbreaking artist's work to the Gulf region."
Ellsworth Kelly (1923-2015) is regarded as one of the most significant American painters and sculptors.
Throughout his career, the artist drew inspiration from nature and the world around him to create a singular style that shaped American abstraction in the 20th and 21st centuries.
The comprehensive presentation will chart the artist's lifelong exploration of the relationship between form, colour, line, and space through key works drawn from pivotal periods in his career.
