The paintings and sculpture of American artist Ellsworth Kelly who came to prominence in the 1950s and '60s, can be described as both abstract and minimalist. In the late 1940s and early 1950s Kelly travelled to France and encounterd the work of artists such as Matisse, Arp and Brancusi, as well Romanesque and Byzantine sculpture and architecture. Such influences, combined with those of the fast-developing Abstract Expressionist movement in the USA itself, shaped the direction of Kelly's own work. His paintings became planes of absolutely flat colour, often on shaped canvases assembled together to make composite works, which, in their total lack of representationalism, could be viewed as almost 'architectural' or sculptural. Usually strictly geometic in construction, his paintings sometimes, as in this print, have a somewhat more organic element, reflecting forms originating in the real world such as architectural detail or shadows.
Another impression of this print is Circ.125-1969