Arch, Pont Neuf, Paris, 1978
Gelatin silver print
Image 8⅝ × 12⅞ inches; 22 × 33 cm
Sheet 11 × 14 inches; 28 × 36 cm
Stamped (verso): Printed under the supervision of the artist
Signed by Jack Shear, the executor of the Kelly estate, and numbered in ink (verso): 5/6
The curve of the Pont Neuf’s sweeping stone arch relates to a number of works by Kelly. Living in Paris as a young artist in the late 1940s and early 1950s, he found inspiration in the city’s architecture as he created some of his earliest abstract compositions. While crossing the Seine one day in 1951, he was suddenly struck by the shadow of the bridge’s arch and its reflection in the river. He later captured the experience in a spare collage, Study for White Plaque (1951), and revisited it in the 1955 painting White Plaque: Bridge Arch and Reflection.
Study for White Plaque: Bridge Arch and Reflection, 1951
Collage
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
White Plaque: Bridge Arch and Reflection, 1955
Oil on wood, two panels separated by a wood strip
The Museum of Modern Art, New York