Ellsworth Kelly's Enduring Modernism at 88

At 88, Ellsworth Kelly is celebrated across the Atlantic with multiple exhibitions. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York hosts 'Ellsworth Kelly: Plant Drawings', while the Museum of Modern Art has rehung its atrium to feature three major works from its permanent collection: 'Colors for a Large Wall' (1951), 'Sculpture for a Large Wall' (1957), and 'Three Panels: Orange, Dark Gray, Green' (1986). In Paris, Galerie Marian Goodman presents a 2012 work comprising four parts—two diptychs with red, yellow, blue, and green monochromes curved and superimposed on uniform rectangular backgrounds. The article argues that Kelly exemplifies artists who maintain creativity into old age, contrasting with the myth of the young, tragic artist embodied by Jackson Pollock, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Eva Hesse, and David Wojnarowicz. It notes that many artists have lived long lives: Titian died at 85–88, Ingres at 87, Picasso at 91, De Kooning at 93, Louise Bourgeois at 98, and Dorothea Tanning at 112. Kelly's plant drawings, mostly in pencil with rare ink and watercolor, show his debt to Matisse and Ingres. The article concludes that Kelly's sustained freshness and innovation prove modernism remains present.