Ellsworth Kelly

American Artist

While in Paris, Kelly had continued to paint the figure but by May 1949, he made his first abstract paintings. Observing how light dispersed on the surface of water, he painted Seine (1950), made of black and white rectangles arranged by chance.
In 1951 he started a series of eight collages titled Spectrum Colors Arranged by Chance I to VIII. He created it by using numbered slips of paper; each referred to a colour, one of eighteen different hues to be placed on a grid 40 inches by 40 inches. Each of the eight collages employed a different process.
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