Monet | Kelly

The first exhibition to consider the influence of Impressionist painter Claude Monet on the works of leading contemporary American artist Ellsworth Kelly. The works in the exhibition were selected by Kelly and include two paintings and eighteen unpublished drawings by the artist, together with nine paintings by Monet from his Belle-Île series and of his garden in Giverny. The exhibition, exclusive to the Clark, examines how both Monet’s motifs and the sites that inspired his paintings have shaped Kelly’s approach to his work.

In reference to a 1952 trip he took to see Monet’s home in the French village of Giverny, Kelly once wrote: “Monet’s last paintings had a great influence on me, and even though my work doesn’t look like his, I feel I want the spirit to be the same” (2001, Monet and Modernism, Prestel Publishing).

“Monet | Kelly is the result of Ellsworth Kelly’s extraordinary vision. It has been a marvelous opportunity for the Clark to work with Mr. Kelly and the exhibition will give audiences the opportunity to see these works through his perspectives as both curator and artist,” said Clark Director Michael Conforti. “While many know Kelly for his reimagining of abstraction through bold color and graphic innovation, few are familiar with his direct engagement with Claude Monet’s work, first while he lived in postwar France, and then episodically over the decades that followed. This exhibition will shed new light on Monet’s continuing influence on Kelly.