Matthew Marks is pleased to announce Ellsworth Kelly: New Paintings and Ellsworth Kelly: Sculpture for a Large Wall, 1957, the next exhibitions in his galleries at 523 West 24th Street and 522 West 22nd Street.

The seven recent paintings to be exhibited at the 24th Street gallery are all large shaped- canvases painted in a single color. They are Kelly’s first new paintings since his 1996 retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Although related to the final paintings in the Guggenheim exhibition, each of Kelly’s new painting have either a shape (an attenuated canvas made from two or three curves) or a color (deep maroon, light blue or pale orange) which he has never made before.

Sculpture for a Large Wall, 1957, a 104-part anodized aluminum sculpture, which measures 12 feet high by 64 feet long, will be exhibited in the 22nd Street gallery.

In 1956, when he was 34 years old, Ellsworth Kelly was invited to create a sculpture for the lobby of Philadelphia’s Transportation Building which housed the old Greyhound Bus Terminal. The piece he made, Sculpture for a Large Wall, 1957, was by far the largest and most ambitious work of his career thus far. It was a summation of his Paris-period work of 1948–54 while it also anticipated his later work. In fact, in the positive and negative spaces of Sculpture for a Large Wall, 1957, one can find many of the shapes in Kelly’s new paintings on view in the 24th Street gallery, despite the 40 year interim.

The Transportation Building was vacated a number of years ago and last year, prior to a major renovation, Ellsworth Kelly’s sculpture was removed. It is being exhibited in New York for the first time.

A pair of fully illustrated catalogues with essays by Dave Hickey and James Meyer will be published to accompany the exhibition.

Ellsworth Kelly: New Paintings and Sculpture for a Large Wall, 1957 will remain on view through June 20th at 523 West 24th Street and 522 West 22nd Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues. Hours: Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM.

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