Skip to content

There is always for me a dominant figure, I simply don't agree with people who see both readings as possible [of the figure ànd ground]

— Ellsworth Kelly Ellsworth Kelly: Works on Paper (1987)

Another quote →

Topics

Books

More quotes by Ellsworth Kelly

I'm interested in the mass and color, the black and the white, the edges happen because the forms get as quiet as they can be.

The form of my painting is the content.

Ellsworth Kelly: Works on Paper (1987)

I made the photographs just like I draw.. .I wanted the photographs [Kelly made circa 1950 in Paris] to be enlightening to my art..

Making art has first of all to do with honesty. My first lesson was to see objectively, to erase all 'meaning' of the thing seen. Then only, could the real meaning of it be understood and felt.

Ellsworth Kelly: Works on Paper (1987)

I felt that everything is beautiful, but [not?] that which man tries intentionally to make beautiful; that the work of an ordinary bricklayer is more valid than the artwork of all but a very few artists.

All Ellsworth Kelly quotes →

You may also like

Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

Francis Bacon Meditationes sacræ (1597)

It is not in the books of the Philosophers, but in the religious symbolism of the Ancients, that we must look for the footprints of Science, and re-discover the Mysteries of Knowledge.

Albert Pike Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871)

There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.

Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451 (1953)

People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.

Logan Pearsall Smith Afterthoughts (1931)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Ellsworth Kelly (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.