
The Chicago Panels
1989
A highlight of the Art Institute of Chicago's permanent collection, 'The Chicago Panels' (1989–1999) is a suite of six monumental color reliefs conceived specifically for the museum's Rice Building. Each panel — black, red, yellow, blue, orange, and green — is reduced to a single chromatic force with irregular contours, curved edges, and commanding scale, bringing painting into direct architectural dialogue with its environment. The blue panel shown here exemplifies Kelly's defining ambition: color as structure, shape as interval, wall as field. The ensemble transforms abstraction into a spatial, ambulatory experience in which color shifts from object to atmosphere as the viewer moves through the space.
- Medium
- Acrylic on fiberglass and plywood
- Dimensions
- Spotted At
- Museum · Art Institute of Chicago
Notes
Suite of six panels: black, red, yellow, blue, orange, and green. Dimensions range from 189.5 × 212.3 cm to 269.8 × 208 cm across the six works. Images courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago © Ellsworth Kelly Foundation. Ownership status: spotted.
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