Guild Hall Spotlights Pivotal Hamptons Moments in Ellsworth Kelly's Career

Guild Hall spotlights iconic American Abstractionist Ellsworth Kelly.

Ellsworth Kelly, “Red, White and Blue” (1961)

“Kelly made a range of extraordinary work—paintings, drawings, collages, photographs and even driftwood sculptures—in the Hamptons,” says Guild Hall guest curator Phyllis Tuchman, whose latest venture illuminates pivotal episodes in Ellsworth Kelly’s more-than-60-year career. While much of his East End oeuvre is in New York and other East Coast institutions, this exhibition, opening Aug. 11, is the first at Guild Hall to feature all materials created by Kelly associated with hard-edge painting, color-field painting and minimalism. Works on view include rarely seen 1968 photographs of Southampton barn-inspired shaped canvases, 1961 photographs of Kelly paintings gathered together in Springs, and drawings of crabs. Says Tuchman, “People arriving at Guild Hall will have moved through the very landscape that inspired Kelly.” Aug. 11-Oct. 8, 158 Main St., East Hampton, guildhall.org