Left: Ellsworth Kelly, Color Trial Proof 3 of Red [deep indigo] (2005), lithograph, 84.5 x 75.9 cm. ©Ellsworth Kelly and Gemini G.E.L., LLC, Los Angeles. Center: Color Trial Proof 1 of Red [cherry red] (2005), lithograph, 84.5 x 75.9 cm. ©Ellsworth Kelly and Gemini G.E.L., LLC, Los Angeles. Right: Trial Proof of Red [red-orange] (2005), lithograph, 84.5 x 75.9 cm. ©Ellsworth Kelly and Gemini G.E.L., LLC, Los Angeles.
A few years back at Gemini G.E.L., the print publishing workshop in Los Angeles, I was doing research for a catalogue raisonné of Ellsworth Kelly’s prints. The catalogue, published in 2012, was occasioned by a retrospective of the artist’s prints organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Kelly, an ambitious printmaker, had created at this point over 300 printed editions since the 1960s. He was first known, however, and is perhaps best known to most, as a painter of vibrantly colored geometric shapes.
During my visit to Gemini, I asked to see a number of prints I had not yet examined in person. Master printer James Reid brought out Red, a lithograph Kelly produced in 2005. I had only seen it in digital form and was unprepared for my reaction when it was laid down on a table in front of me. The red shape seemed to jump off the paper; I could not take my eyes off of the lithograph. Like hearing the crack of a baseball bat, I knew instantly that Kelly had hit this one out of the park.
Red, a large-scale print roughly 33 by 30 inches, presents a sharp-angled trapezium—a quadrilateral with no parallel sides—that dominates the sheet on which it is centered. Its liveliness as an unwieldy shape is held in a state of dynamic equilibrium. There is a play of forms between the triangulated shapes implied by the unprinted portions of the sheet and the shape itself. But the most important exchange is between the skewed rectangle and the roughly square sheet of paper on which it rests. The shapes are calibrated to each other so that neither undoes the character of the other; the energy of the red shape and the stasis of the sheet hold each other in check; neither trumps the other. The misbehaving trapezium nonetheless twists and strains to explode out of the confines of the sheet, spinning off-balance on one of its corner points. Tensions are heightened by Kelly’s decision to enlarge the red shape so that its four corner points nearly graze the edges of the paper—witty near-misses, no collisions.
Ellsworth Kelly, Red [true red or vermilion] (2005), lithograph, 84.5 x 75.9 cm. ©Ellsworth Kelly and Gemini G.E.L., LLC, Los Angeles.
Kelly is a joyous colorist who revels in the power of color. No one celebrates the primary colors like Kelly. The radiant gathering of red, yellow and blue in a single work has become his color signature. Although his colors may appear drawn directly from the spectrum, there is no single Kelly red, yellow, or blue—or any other color for that matter. The exact red he uses in Red is critical to its success. Many colors go by the name of red. The red here is a bright vermilion or slightly high-keyed cadmium red, the result of meticulous mixings of several printing inks. The inks Kelly uses in his prints are not out of the can; nor, for that matter, are the oil paints he uses in his paintings directly out of the tube. What matters for Kelly is that the inks are mixed to his exacting specifications—and that they are lithographic inks.
Although Kelly has worked with screenprinting and intaglio processes, lithography has been his medium of choice. Kelly came to prefer lithography to screenprinting for the same reasons he prefers oil to acrylic paints on canvas. Screenprinting inks, like acrylics, can be loud, crisp, and flat. They tend to rest on the surface of the paper more than lithographic inks, which are absorbed; he sees the effect of screenprinting inks as too inert. Greasy lithographic inks have the richness of oil painting and an appealing, subdued lightness. Kelly likes the transparency and luminosity of these media because of the liveliness and radiance they lend his images; that luminosity is what gives the flat trapezium in Red its color brilliance and depth.
While on a visit in early 2011 to Kelly’s home studio in upstate New York, I noticed that Gemini’s documentation for Red listed an officially registered set of four color trial proofs, all so inscribed and signed by Kelly. (Color trial proofs are impressions made before the color to be used in the published edition is determined.) I asked to see the proofs, of which the studio had three. They revealed that Kelly had considered deep indigo, cherry red, and red-orange. Later I learned that Gemini had the remaining color trial proof in a bright brick red.
Kelly’s art connects us intimately to the world through the senses. Herein lies its great humanity. Our sense of color is enhanced, one could also say celebrated, through exacting choices. The lithograph Red is an inspiriting cocktail of color, light, and motion—a Tilt-A-Whirl for the mind and eye. The artist has said that the goal of his art is “lilt and joy.” This, Red amply achieves.