CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 2/15/2024

Next-level Ellsworth Kelly

Ellsworth Kelly’s 1956 painting Atlantic is reproduced from Glenstone Museum’s fearlessly well-designed, 314-page, clothbound new release, featuring jaw-droppingly beautiful tipped-on images on front and back cover. “It’s about perception, to feel it somehow,” Kelly is quoted. “It’s a special way of looking. I have trained my eye over and over ever since I was a kid. I was a bird watcher when I was a little boy. My grandmother gave me a bird book, and I got to like their colors. I said, ‘Jesus, a little blackbird with red wings.’ That was one of the first birds I saw in the pine tree behind my house, and I followed it as he flew into one of the trees—like he was leading me on. In a way, that little bird seems to be responsible for all of my paintings.”