Ellsworth Kelly is widely regarded as one of the most important abstract painters, sculptors and printmakers working today. Kelly insists on the connection between abstraction and nature from which he extrapolates forms and colors. Since the beginning of his career, Kelly’s emphasis on pure form and color and his impulse to suppress gesture in favor of creating spatial unity have played a pivotal role in the development of abstract art in America.

This hour-long documentary, shot in High Definition, elucidates the true complexity of the artist’s work. In following Kelly as he revisits the Paris of his early twenties, the film uncovers early influences that became leitmotifs he would return to, reiterate, refine, and re-work for decades to come. A spinal sequence, showing, from A to Z, Kelly’s creation of two wall sculptures commissioned for the new U.S. Embassy in Beijing, provides a dramatic thrust to the film. Insightful commentary from scholars and critics including Robert Storr (Dean, Yale School of Art), Anne d’Harnoncourt (Director, Philadelphia Museum of Art), Alfred Pacquement (Director, Centre Georges Pompidou), Ann Temkin (Curator, MoMA) and Roberta Bernstein (Professor, University at Albany) helps to round out this definitive portrait of one of the true giants of American art.

Winner of Award for Best Film for Television 26th Annual Festival International du Film sur l’Art (FIFA), Montréal

P R O D U C E R S : Edgar B. Howard and Jo Carole Lauder
D I R E C T O R S : Edgar B. Howard and Tom Piper
C O L O R , 6 5 M I N U T E S