The FLAG Art Foundation and the Parrish Art Museum
Launch New Curatorial Partnership

Ellsworth Kelly: Eight Decades
MARCH 8-JUNE 14, 2026

American artist Ellsworth Kelly (1923–2015) drew his distinctive formalist language from the world around him. From his early years, he was inspired by his encounters with everyday objects: a window frame, a slab of butter, a petal’s edge—all offered fruitful studies of how the eye perceives mass and color. From his observations emerged a surprisingly diverse body of work, ranging from figurative drawings and straight photography to monochromatic canvases and abstract sculptures that distill the effects of shape, color, and light. Fascinated by the way objects shift and transform based on perception, Kelly once stated: “I want to capture some of that mystery in my work. In my paintings, I’m not inventing; my ideas come from constantly investigating how things look.”

Ellsworth Kelly: Eight Decades surveys the artist’s lifelong pursuit to represent these “elusive forms.” Comprising a selection of roughly twenty works created between the 1940s and the 2010s, the exhibition features key examples of the minimalist approach Kelly developed in his mature work alongside the artist’s early paintings, plant drawings, and photographs taken while he was on the East End of Long Island. This concentrated selection reveals how specific motifs emerged throughout his career and across various mediums, underscoring his sustained concerns with flattening form, working with negative space, and reducing color to its most elemental state. As Kelly observed towards the end of his life: “My later paintings have all the early paintings inside them.”

Ellsworth Kelly: Eight Decades is organized by the Parrish Art Museum and The FLAG Art Foundation, in collaboration with Jack Shear, President of the Ellsworth Kelly Foundation. The exhibition is curated by Scout Hutchinson, The FLAG Art Foundation Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the Parrish Art Museum, and Jonathan Rider, FLAG’s Director, with Caroline Cassidy, FLAG’s Deputy Director.

About:

Ellsworth Kelly is regarded as one of the most important abstract painters, sculptors and printmakers of his time. Spanning eight decades, his career was marked by the independent route he took from any formal school or art movement and by his innovative contribution to twentieth-century painting and sculpture. Kelly drew on the connection between abstraction and nature from which he extrapolated forms and colors. From the beginning of his career, Kelly emphasized pure form and color. His impulse to suppress gesture in favor of creating spatial unity has played a pivotal role in the development of abstract art in America.

Kelly’s first one-man exhibition was at the Galerie Arnaud in Paris in 1951. His retrospective exhibitions include Ellsworth Kelly at The Museum of Modern Art in 1973; Ellsworth Kelly Recent Paintings and Sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1979; Ellsworth Kelly Sculpture in 1982 at the Whitney Museum of American Art and Saint Louis Art Museum; Ellsworth Kelly: A Retrospective in 1996 at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Tate, London and the Haus der Kunst in Munich; Ellsworth Kelly Sculpture at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam in 2021; and Ellsworth Kelly at 100 at Glenstone Museum in Potomac, Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, and M7 of Qatar Museums, Doha in 2023.

Recent exhibitions include Ellsworth Kelly Black and White at the Haus der Kunst and the Museum Wiesbaden; Ellsworth Kelly Plant Drawings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Louisiana Museum of Art, Humlebaek and the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; Ellsworth Kelly: Sculpture on the Wall at the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia; Ellsworth Kelly: The Chatham Series at The Museum of Modern Art; Monet | Kelly at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts; Ellsworth Kelly Last Paintings at Matthew Marks Gallery; Form into Spirit: Ellsworth Kelly’s Austin (coinciding with the opening of the Ellsworth Kelly chapel, Austin), Blanton Museum of Art, UT Austin; Ellsworth Kelly: Black & White Works at The FLAG Art Foundation, New York; Ellsworth Kelly: Windows/Fenêtres at Musée National d’Art Moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; and Ellsworth Kelly: Portraits at Art Institute of Chicago.

Kelly has received the Japan’s Premium Imperiale Award in 2000, Officer de la Legion d’Honneur presented by President of France Nicolas Sarkozy in 2009, and the National Medal of Arts presented by President of the United States Barack Obama in 2012.

The FLAG Art Foundation and the Parrish Art Museum are proud to announce a new curatorial partnership in which FLAG and the Parrish will collaborate on three exhibitions annually across two adjoining galleries at the museum through 2030. The inaugural exhibition will present eight decades worth of drawings, paintings, and sculpture spanning the career of Ellsworth Kelly, organized in collaboration with Jack Shear, President of the Ellsworth Kelly Foundation.

This partnership builds on the recent FRESH PAINT collaboration, a rotating series of single-artwork exhibitions at the Parrish Art Museum that began in June 2024. To date, the series has featured Lauren Halsey, Derrick Adams, Reggie Burrows Hodges, Raven Halfmoon and Rudolf Stingel. Each FRESH PAINT presentation is accompanied by a commissioned essay that sparks thoughtful dialogue between the visual arts and writers, critics, poets, scholars and beyond. Members of the Parrish Art Museum’s Teen Council ARTscope also create a collaborative response to each exhibition.

Signaling the deepening of the relationship between FLAG and the Parrish, this curatorial collaboration also marks the growth of FLAG’s commitment to support contemporary art practices of all forms beyond its brick-and-mortar exhibition spaces in Manhattan. “The Parrish Art Museum is an institution close to our heart and one that we have been honored to work with over the past decade,” said Glenn Fuhrman, founder of The FLAG Art Foundation. “With this strategic partnership as an example, FLAG will be able to contribute its relationships, resources and curatorial expertise to addressing the complex needs of museums nationwide, ensuring they are able to pursue the most thoughtful curatorial and educational work.”

“This partnership represents an exceptional alignment and synergy between our organizations’ missions and visions—from maintaining a pulse on the most relevant developments in modern and contemporary art to sharing an understanding of how art profoundly enriches the lives of those in our communities,” said Dr. Mónica Ramírez-Montagut, Executive Director of the Parrish. “Our growing relationship with The FLAG Art Foundation deepens the Parrish’s ability to continue presenting bold, forward-thinking exhibitions that resonate with our local communities while advancing the broader field of art. This collaboration comes at a critical moment for the Parrish and for public arts institutions nationwide. Amid decreasing federal support for cultural programs, our collaboration with Glenn Fuhrman and his remarkable team at FLAG provides essential resources, expertise and a shared vision that elevate our curatorial and educational work alongside them as visionary peers.”

A key part of the agreement is the creation of a curatorial position dedicated to programming for the two adjoining galleries. The space will be curated by Scout Hutchinson, whose role as Associate Curator of Exhibitions at the Parrish is now reappointed as The FLAG Art Foundation Associate Curator of Contemporary Art. Since joining the Parrish in October 2024, Hutchinson has worked with FLAG on several FRESH PAINT exhibitions.

“I’m honored by this new appointment and grateful for FLAG’s support,” said Scout Hutchinson. “Through FRESH PAINT, we have been able to bring newly made or rarely exhibited works by contemporary artists to our audiences on the East End. This expanded partnership allows us to build on that momentum with an ambitious, ongoing program of exhibitions, and I look forward to continuing to collaborate with the wonderful team at FLAG.”

About:
The Parrish Art Museum is a place to discover and connect with artists and art with a focus on the rich creative legacy of the East End and its global impact on the art world. Inspired by the natural setting and historical artistic community of Long Island’s East End, the Parrish Art Museum celebrates its legacy through a distinctive contemporary lens and socially conscious global context. The Parrish illuminates the creative process and how art, architecture, and design transform our experiences and our communities, and how we relate to the world. Access to relevant cultural engagement, artistic inspiration, a natural environment, and architectural ingenuity characterizes the Museum experience as a unique destination for the region, the nation, and the world.