Ellsworth Kelly - Contemporary Art Part II New York Friday, May 16, 2008 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles; Private collection, California

  • Catalogue Essay

    Taken in context with Kelly’s print works, the present lot represents a step further in the artist’s ongoing investigation into the capacity of materials to express his ideas of physical perfection.  Only barely perceptible as three-dimensional, depending on the viewer’s vantage point, Mirrored Concorde is a geometrical illustration made real.  Famously challenging to produce, the resulting work appears implacable and immaculate; all evidence of manufacture has been eradicated, and the viewer is left with a feeling of inevitability.  Unlike the works from Jeff Koons’s Celebration series, also crafted from mirror-polished stainless steel, however, the non-representational nature and scale of the present lot render it free of tongue-in-cheek hubris.  The monolithic wood base forms a crucial difference in this regard, as its warmth reconnects the sculptural form to the organic world.      

  • Artist Biography

    Ellsworth Kelly

    American • 1923 - 2015

    Acting as a vital contributor to the Abstract movement, Ellsworth Kelly focused on color and composition. Becoming inspired by ornithology and the bold coloring of birds, Kelly used a two or three pigment color palette — painted flatly and geometrically — on his canvases. While living in Paris, the artist used Monet's late works as a base for experimenting with expressionism and serial work

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273

Mirrored Concorde

1971
Polished steel on wooden base. 
51 1/8 x 25 3/4 x 13 1/2 in. (129.9 x 65.4 x 34.3 cm) overall.
Signed, titled and dated  "Kelly Mirrored Concorde 1971" and numbered of 12 on the underside. This work is from an edition of 12.

Estimate
$120,000 - 180,000 

Sold for $211,000

Contemporary Art Part II

16 May 2008, 10am & 2pm
New York