The Chicago Panels
1989
Part of Ellsworth Kelly's landmark suite 'The Chicago Panels' (1989–1999), this black panel is one of six monumental shaped reliefs conceived for the Rice Building at the Art Institute of Chicago. Rotated 45 degrees into a diamond orientation, the work exemplifies Kelly's ambition to integrate painting with architecture — color as structure, shape as interval, wall as field. Its deep, uniform black surface and irregular curved edges create a commanding presence that oscillates between object and atmosphere. The ensemble is held in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago and is widely regarded as one of Kelly's most lucid architectural realizations.
- Medium
- Acrylic on fiberglass and plywood
- Dimensions
- Spotted At
- Museum · The 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 suite. Images courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago © Ellsworth Kelly Foundation. Source: zeitcontemporaryart post.
Artists in conversation
Frank Stella
American · b. 1936
Stella shared Kelly's commitment to hard edge abstraction and shaped canvases where the form of the support itself became integral to the composition. Both artists pursued a rigorous reduction of painting to pure color and geometry.
Kenneth Noland
American · b. 1924
Noland worked in the Color Field tradition with bold unmodulated areas of flat color arranged in simple geometric configurations such as targets and chevrons. His work shares Kelly's emphasis on color relationships and clean formal clarity.
Josef Albers
German American · b. 1888
Albers explored the optical and perceptual effects of flat pure color through precisely bounded geometric forms, closely paralleling Kelly's sustained investigation of how colors interact and assert themselves against one another.
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