Red Yellow Blue White and Black II

Ellsworth Kelly's "Red Yellow Blue White and Black II" (1953) is an oil on canvas consisting of seven joined panels, a major early work that establishes Kelly's mature vocabulary of form and color. The title announces exactly what the painting contains: panels or forms in red, yellow, blue, white, and black (the "II" indicates a later version of a composition first explored earlier). The seven panels create a sequence of colors that the eye reads across the work, each color maintaining its identity while participating in the larger composition. Kelly's approach to color was influenced by his observations of the natural world and by his study of modern art, particularly the work of Matisse, whom he admired. The seven-panel format is ambitious and confident, the young artist asserting his vision on a grand scale. This painting was created in the same period as Kelly's first solo exhibition in New York, marking his emergence as a major figure in American abstraction. Today it is recognized as a landmark of mid-century American art.

Kelly's multi-panel color compositions were groundbreaking in their reduction of painting to the essential elements of color, shape, and sequence, influencing generations of abstract artists.

Seven panels of pure color arranged in sequence, this painting reduces abstraction to its essentials while creating a visual experience of extraordinary richness and clarity.