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Art

‘Ellsworth Kelly at 100’: Sensational in more ways than one

Glenstone showcases the late artist’s rich, lustrous shaped canvases that delight in the play of color

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Ellsworth Kelly’s “Yellow Curve” (1990) is on view in the exhibition “Ellsworth Kelly at 100" at Glenstone. (Ron Amstutz/Glenstone Museum/© Ellsworth Kelly Foundation)

When I close my eyes, I can still see the lemon sherbet hue of “Yellow Curve,” an eye-popping floor painting by Ellsworth Kelly. With any luck, I’ll see it in my dreams.

The painting is a slice of a circle running 25 feet along its radius and rising just one inch off the ground. First commissioned in 1990 for a museum in Frankfurt, Germany, “Yellow Curve” has been painstakingly reconstructed by Glenstone, a long-planned project overseen by the artist himself before his death in 2015. It’s the centerpiece of a career-spanning survey organized by the museum for the artist’s centennial.