Here's your chance to own an Ellsworth Kelly for just 55 cents
The US postal service has just commemorated the artist with a beautiful set of stamps for launch this year
Back in the early 1950s, when he was an emerging artist with limited means, Ellsworth Kelly experimented with a little mail art. “Shortly after his return to the US in 1954 (from working and travelling in France), Kelly sent his friend Ralph Coburn his first collage made in New York,” writes Tricia Y. Paik in our Ellsworth Kelly monograph. “Made with a postcard, he would later title it Gauloise Blue with Red Curve. He introduced an upside-down bell-shaped curve in red against a white ground.”
The artwork was the first of a string of postcards Kelly made and sent. Now, over half-a-decade later, the US Postal Service is returning the favour by issuing a set of Ellsworth Kelly stamps. The 20 stamps feature 10 artworks - each represented twice.
The works reproduced are Yellow White (1961), Colors for a Large Wall (1951), Blue Red Rocker (1963), Spectrum I (1953), South Ferry (1956), Blue Green (1962), Orange Red Relief (for Delphine Seyrig) (1990), Meschers (1951), Red Blue (1964) and Gaza (1956).
They’re beautiful works that, in their original form, would surely command five to seven figure sums. However, the US Postal Service is selling this edition for just 55 cents apiece, giving everyone a chance to own an Ellsworth. So don't send that thank you email, put it in a card and send it instead.
For more on this brilliant 20th century American artist's work buy our Ellsworth Kelly monograph and to turn cultured kids on to Ellsworth Kelly's beautiful seemingly simple work, buy them a copy of our popular children's board book Up, Down & Other Opposites with Ellsworth Kelly. They'll thank you for it later (and maybe with a snail mail).
