Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Ellsworth Kelly: Spectrum Colors Arranged by Chance

Ellsworth Kelly: Spectrum Colors Arranged by Chance

Higgins, Hannah B.
Haskell, Caitlin
Bianconi, Giampaolo

Paperback

Art HistoryGeneral ArtIndividual Artists

Publisher Price: $30.00

ISBN10: 0300284055
ISBN13: 9780300284058
Publisher: Art Institute of Chicago
Published: Nov 11 2025
Pages: 82
Weight: 1.05
Height: 0.30 Width: 7.40 Depth: 13.00
Language: English
A look at Ellsworth Kelly's eight Spectrum Colors Arranged by Chance collages and how they set the foundation for his career-long exploration of abstract, minimalist art

Revered for his iconic color field paintings, Ellsworth Kelly (1923-2015) is one of the most influential artists in American Abstraction. His body of work, encompassing paintings, sculptures, and prints, illustrates his unprecedented experiments with form and color. Less well known are his eight collages, known as Spectrum Colors Arranged by Chance (1951), which led directly to some of the artist's most iconic early works. Made from papier gomette, or sticky squares of colored paper used by French schoolchildren, these collages represent Kelly's early exploration of non-compositional strategies. Created by using chance operations to place the gomette on grids, Spectrum Colors Arranged by Chance boldly anticipates the evolution of Kelly's innovative methods. Alongside brilliant photographs that bring the reader into intimate contact with Kelly's series of collages, a wide-ranging roundtable conversation with artist Jacqueline B. Humphries, art historian Hannah Higgins, and Kelly's widower, the photographer Jack Shear, explores the origins of these groundbreaking works and their continued resonance today, bringing to life the story of his bold, experimental designs.

Distributed for the Art Institute of Chicago

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