What do you think?
Rate this book
Ellsworth Kelly: 1954, Drawings on a Bus: Sketchbook 23
This reproduction of Ellsworth Kelly's 1954 Sketchbook 23 offers a rare glimpse into the celebrated artist's rigorous exploration of line, form and composition. Drawn into a blank book and forming a single continuous gesture over 25 pages as the artist saw and captured the changing fall of shadows while riding on a bus in Paris, Kelly's line pursues a path of eccentric discovery and distillation through subtle variations and bold transformations.
- GenresArt
48 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2007
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 3, 2012
In 1954 Ellsworth Kelly was back in New York City after several years in Paris. While in Paris he had developed paintings based on the regimented ordering of windows on apartment building facades as well as the shadows cast by bridges spanning the Seine.
In New York he rode the bus a great deal, and began sketching the rapidly shifting patterns of shadows within the bus produced when sunlight from the window moved across seat backs and the overhead bars passengers clung to for support. In his studio, he worked the sketches into ink drawings that removed the physical references of the bus interiors and produced ungainly, off-kilter abstractions. The range of spatial relationships he found in these sketches made it into some of his earliest paintings exhibited in the United States.
This fascimile of Sketchbook 23 is a jewel of a book. It's an intimate companion to Tablet, the almost encyclopedic survey of Kelly sketchbooks.
In New York he rode the bus a great deal, and began sketching the rapidly shifting patterns of shadows within the bus produced when sunlight from the window moved across seat backs and the overhead bars passengers clung to for support. In his studio, he worked the sketches into ink drawings that removed the physical references of the bus interiors and produced ungainly, off-kilter abstractions. The range of spatial relationships he found in these sketches made it into some of his earliest paintings exhibited in the United States.
This fascimile of Sketchbook 23 is a jewel of a book. It's an intimate companion to Tablet, the almost encyclopedic survey of Kelly sketchbooks.
April 4, 2014
I really like this book, such a great insight into the formal origins of some of Kelly's work.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews