Exit
Lake Shore Drive (There ain’t no road just like it, anywhere I’ve found) at
Fullerton and head west a block.
Look to your right, and you may see a vertical mass of stainless steel
set back from Cannon Drive.
That would be Ellsworth Kelly’s Curve XXII, a shining
announcement that there must be at least another XXI curves out there
somewhere.
It
sits its site well, surrounded by daffodils in a few more weeks, lolling about
in the shade during the summer months, providing a bit of sparkle during the dullness
of winter.
 |
| Curve XXII (JWB, 2010) |
Curve
XXII
was installed in 1981, and it was artist Ellworth Kelly’s first major
commission for an outdoor sculpture.
Kelly is another one of those fascinating artists and architects who was
born between World Wars I and II.
Raised
in the small New Jersey town of Oradell, he developed an eye for color before he was ten-years-old as a
result of his grandfather’s introducing him to bird watching around the Oradell
reservoir.
Upon graduation from high school, he attended the Pratt Institute in New
York City, a private school focusing on art and design, a place with names
like Robert Mapplethorpe, Peter Max, and Robert Redford included in its alumni.
His
studies were interrupted by his Induction into the Army in 1943 interrupted
Kelly’s studies, and he served in the Ghost Army from 1943 until the end of the
war. [Wikipedia] This branch of the service
specialized in the manufacture of inflatable tanks, trucks and other pieces of
fabricated equipment designed to mislead the Axis powers on the strength of
Allied forces, a act of subterfuge that was particularly important as the
preparations for the invasion of Normandy were being made.
After
the war he returned to the United States and studied at the School of the
Museum of Fine Arts in Boston before returning to Paris, where he studied at
the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts. It was in Paris that Kelly began his career as an artist,
beginning first with a series of paintings inspired by the play of light and
shadow over the 20th century architecture of that city.
In 1954 Kelly again returned to the United States, settling in a
loft in Manhattan. By the late
1950’s he had an international reputation, primarily as a result of his
paintings which “juxtaposed blocks of single, flat colours with silhouetted
shapes, abstracted from organic forms.”
[www.moma.org]
 |
| Ellsworth Kelly at installation of sculpture at U. S. Embassy in Berlin, Germany (Google images) |
Kelly turned to sculpture in 1970, taking inspiration from his
residence in upstate New York. In
these totemic pieces “he was not concerned with colour, except for that of the
material itself in order to stress shape and give the pieces consistency and
easier maintenance.” [moma]
It was in 1976 that a
sculpture across Fullerton to the south, the likeness of Carl von
Linné that was created for the 1893 celebration in Chicago, was moved to the
University of Chicago campus to celebrate the visit of the King of Sweden during that summer . . . probably easier to impress a king at the university than next to the zoo.
Cindy Mitchell, who was a founding member of the Friends of the
Parks and who served as its president for ten years, was determined to replace
the Linné statue in a park that had not seen a new piece of statuary in over a
quarter-century.
A grant came from the National Endowment for the Arts, an
additional $100,000 was raised, much of it a dollar at a time, and a jury which
included architect Walter Netsch selected Ellsworth Kelly to create the new
artwork.
Kelly did not accept a fee for his design, and Paschen
Cosntruction donated its services to build the foundation and install the
sculpture, a work that is more commonly known as I Will, the unofficial motto
of the city. [Chicago Park
District]
Another large Ellsworth Kelly sculpture can be found in the Pritzker
Garden of the Modern Wing at the Art Institute of Chicago. Entitled White Curve, its was commissioned
by Director Jim Cuno for his predecessor, James Wood, who began the planning
for the Modern Wing during his tenure from 1980 to 2004. Click on the YouTube clip below and see Ellsworth Kelly watching the installation of White Curve.
My next blog will concern the original statue of Carl Linné, a piece that has a fascinating history of its own.
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1 comment:
This is one of my favorite sculptures. I think it looks sleek and great near the lake, it makes me think of a surf board. So glad that the Park Board have commissioned works for the wonderful parks of Chicago. Thank you for giving us this history on the sculpture.
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