I believe people have to be open to what's happening when they're alive. — Ellsworth Kelly Copy Share Image
A lot of young painters love to incorporate celebrity. One idea of being a painter is to use what's happening at the time. Velázquez was painting of his time. And so was Rembrandt. And Francis Bacon was painting his time… — Ellsworth Kelly Copy Share Image
I don't like acrylic because you can't get the density of color. And with each coat of oil paint, the surface gets better and… — Ellsworth Kelly Copy Share Image
I have worked to free shape from its ground, and then to work the shape so that it has a definite relationship to the space around it; so that it has a clarity and a measure within itself of its parts (angles, curves, edges and mass); and so that, with color and tonality, the shape finds its own space and… — Ellsworth Kelly Copy Share
All my work comes from perceiving. I kept seeing things that were brooding in me. I'm not a geometric artist. — Ellsworth Kelly Copy Share Image
My ideas I can find anywhere. And I draw because I have to note down my ideas or flashes - I call them flashes,… — Ellsworth Kelly Copy Share Image
The paintings to me are always canvas; sculpture has always been metal, though I have made sculpture in wood, also. — Ellsworth Kelly Copy Share Image
I'm not interested in edges. I'm interested in the mass and color, the black and white. The edges happen because the forms get as… — Ellsworth Kelly Copy Share Image
The form of my painting is the content. My work is made of single or multiple panels: rectangle, curved, or square. I am less interested in marks on the panels than the 'presence' of the panels themselves. In Red Yellow Blue III the square panels present color. It was made to exist forever in the present; it is an idea… — Ellsworth Kelly Copy Share
I only like artists older than myself. Time is so important. It's always been the same way, I guess. — Ellsworth Kelly Copy Share Image
Matisse draws what I call the essence of the plants. He leaves a shape open. He'll do a leaf and not close it. Everybody… — Ellsworth Kelly Copy Share Image
All my work begins with drawings. I don’t labor over my drawings. I want to get freedom in the line. I like to be… — Ellsworth Kelly Copy Share Image
