Ellsworth Kelly - Austin Chapel

Shortly bevor his death, American artist Ellsworth Kelly gifted to the Blanton Museum in Austin the design concept for his most monumental and perhaps most important work, a stone building with luminous, geometrically arranged colored glass windows, a totemic wood sculpture, and fourteen black and white marble panels. Titled Austin, honoring the artist's tradition of naming particular works after the places for which they are destined, the structure is the only building the artist ever designed, although his interest in architectural forms dated back to his beginnings in Paris in the 1940s. Envisioned as a site for joy and contemplation, Austin has become the city's new landmark. Ellsworth Kelly: Austin documents the works lengthy genesis, from Kelly's first drafts up to its completion on today's site. A comprehensive Essay by Carter E. Forster, the Blanton Museum's deputy director for curatorial affairs and curator of prints and drawings, presents archive material, drawings, historic photographs, and many works by Kelly created during the conceptional work on Austin.