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ROBERT KELLY

SOPHIA CONTEMPORARY GALLERY 11 Grosvenor Street, Mayfair, London, W1K 4QB, UK

www.sophiacontemporary.com


ROBERT KELLY

ROBERT KELLY

Robert Kelly (born 1956) is an American artist based in New York City. Kelly was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and studied at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts (B.A. 1978). Kelly has traveled throughout the United States, Europe, North Africa, the Near East, and Nepal. His work often incorporates unusual materials from his journeys, among them vintage posters and printed antique paper, obscured and layered in saturated pigments on a canvas faintly scored with irregular grids. Kelly’s paintings have been likened to palimpsests and his method described as one of building “meticulously on inhabited ground, layering materials, documents, and signs, covering them, wiping out their beauty, nearly, but allowing something of the labor and their languages to persist.” Robert Kelly’s influences include the De Stijl movement, Malevich and Mondrian and modernists like Bauhaus, Joaquin Torres-Garcia, Philip Guston, Richard Diebenkorn, Kurt Schwitters, Blinky Palermo and Brazilian Neo-Concretists Lygia Clark and Helio Oiticica. Kelly himself cites Hans Arp, Myron Stout, Tony Smith, Brancusi, Calder, Bill Traylor, Louise Bourgeois, and Ellsworth Kelly.

His paintings have been acquired by public and private collections in Europe and the United States, including The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY; The Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, NM; Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI; Smith College Art Museum, Northampton MA; Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutger’s University, NJ; Montgomery Museum of Fine Ars, Montgomery; The Fogg Museum, Cambridge, MA; The Margulies Collection, Miami, FL; and The McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX.

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Robert Kelly’s works impress us with the ease, virtuosity, and persuasion in which the artist deals with seemingly polar plastic and artistic phenomena, resulting in an organic and multi-di-mensional creativity emerging at the artist’s will.

Robert Kelly honours geometry, feeling it represents a visible assertion of human presence in the universe: ordered geometric elements are generated by the human mind and imagination. Abstract regular shapes are children of civilization: when creating them, the artist is on the same footing with Nature, being a creator just like her.

The assertion of aesthetic value, importance, and magnificence of geometric abstract art is an achievement of not such a distant past. Two titans of the twentieth century Modernism, Russian avant-gardist Kazimir Malevich and Dutch artist Piet Mondrian had to fight relentlessly for the recognition of this new artistic language. They paved the way for all subsequent generations of artists captivated by the unprecedented opportunities opened up by generalized compositions with or without subject that have overcome traditions of mimetic figurative art.

Already from the very beginning – starting from the golden age of both great masters – it became apparent that abstract art constitutes a world of directions where some are exactly opposite to the others, as well as boundless alternatives enabling masters to express their individuality and talent.

American Robert Kelly is a sophisticated artist who knows and loves the works of the visionaries, yet is well aware of their antagonism. Asserting his system of dynamic abstraction that he called Suprematism, Kazimir Malevich polemically denied the balanced Neo-plastic grids created by Piet Mondrian, while the latter believed that the un-shakeable harmony of the universe lies in the tran-quillity of static and therefore perfect constructions.

Alexandra Shatskikh

ROBERT KELLY, VIRTUOSO OF THE PALIMPSEST

Nocturne I, 1999 Oil/ Mixed Media on Board, 43 x 36 cm

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Kazimir Malevich, Black Square and Circle, 1920/21Pencil on paper, 19,5 x 31 cmCollection of Vladimir Tsarenkov

Kazimir Malevich, Plate “Dynamic composition”, 1923The State (former Imperial) Porcelain ManufactoryPainting design: K.MalevichPainting execution: A. KudriavtsevPorcelain, polychrome overglaze painting, D 23,7 cmCollection of Vladimir Tsarenkov

Understanding such opposed standpoints, Robert Kelly enters into a dialogue with the creations of both artists to achieve an amazing result: in his own works, he brings together the polarity of both abstract systems.

In the works where he uses generalized geometric elements, the tone is set by large patterns of clear sonorous colour the artist puts into strong geometric figures: they give a feeling of continuity and stability, and their arrangement is elegant with rectified and substantiated harmony; we can definitely see the artist’s love for Neoplasticism and his dialogue with Piet Mondrian.

At the same time, the large and clearly delineated shapes dominating his designs unmistakably correspond to Malevich’s monofigures, primarily to the famous Suprematist Black Square with its hidden dynamics whose strain palpably breaks the regular nature of its square figure.

Nonetheless, the dramatic difference in Kelly’s abstract works – despite all associative ties to the great traditions of geometric abstract visionaries – lies in the deliberate and even somewhat polemic denial of sterility, the estrangement from anything material that is so crucial to the works of Malev-ich-the-mystic and Mondrian-the-theosophist.

The American painter greatly respects the metaphysical nature of pure abstraction yet is a master of other equally powerful plastic systems of modern art. These systems were also induced by overwhelming shifts in art, which brought the new civilizational era beginning in the twentieth century.

The spiritual ideality of pure nonobjectivity would draw painting away from earthly matters, and some daring and talented artists found it bloodless, ethereal and excessively transcendent. Denying the sublime sterility of strict abstract constructions, they turned to purely material phenomena glorifying in their works the tangible flesh of the world and the material visualization of artistic ideas.

In 1914-1915, another Russian avant-gardist, Vladimir Tatlin, the visionary of the Constructivist movement, created so-called selections of materials, giving voice to trivial everyday materials that previously never pertained to art, such as glass, wallpapers, brown paper, concrete, ropes, wire, or undyed wood.

Kurt Schwitters, the German Dadaist, pursued this direction in his own way by organizing waste into grandiose installations.

Robert Kelly manifests his focused attention to materiality on quite a remarkable medium. He loves paper and it looks like paper loves him: it does not let him go, wishing to find a place in every work of the master.

The paper Kelly works with takes the form of used posters, stationary forms, and sheets from manuscripts, just to name a few. Here, the American master with his usual artistic effortlessness appropriates another great tradition that has shaped contemporary art – the famous readymades of Marcel Duchamp.

Already a quick listing of the various traditions infusing Robert Kelly’s work brings the feeling of the wealth and complexity, which make his works so captivating. In his works, the artist brings together and blends the beautiful harmony of geometric patterns whose silhouettes, in partic-ular figures made of semi-circular and circular outlines (Mimesis series, 2010), impress with their perfection, steadiness of the hand, and unmatched clarity. This is achieved on a background of everyday materials, such as paper strips or squares taken from posters or old printed materials.

The coexistence of eternal geometric shapes and ephemeral evidence of everyday human reality and urban life builds up a vibrant contrast in small and large compositions, producing an acute effect on the viewer’s perception.

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The decorative compositions of his Nocturnes, with their monumental grids of large rectangles of local sonorous colours, echo Mondrian’s post-and-beam Neoplasticism, dating back to ancient classical architecture on the one hand, and to Malevich’s favoured Suprematist monofigures on the other hand.

Amazing subtlety is found in the arranged background patterns in Nocturnes: Kelly reverses, scrapes, abrades and folds the paper edges into a geometric structuring pattern and its delicate flatness evokes the refined flatness of ancient Egyptian bas-reliefs.

Conceptual metamorphosis and conceptual games are essential for Robert Kelly, yet he does not cease to be a painter as he remains committed to the traditional craft of painting, experiencing with all his senses the process of putting paint with a brush on a plane, leaving colour traces and feeling the tone-vibration of brush strokes and paint on the canvas.

Robert Kelly is a master of material abstraction, and that is not an oxymoron: he is able to combine fragility and eternity, heaviness and lightness, the present and the timeless, tactile palpability and contemplative ideality, the regular rigor of geometry and the organic free-wheeling of painting, and the list of extremes found in his works can go on and on.

Appropriating the traditions of different eras and the features of various types of art, the American artist treats them as essential building blocks of great cultures of the past and present, as formations which he combines and superimposes, using them as a filter through time thus enriching each other; he materializes this with sophistication in the formidable plastic fabric of his works.

The magnificent and mature works of Robert Kelly shall be called palimpsests, and their author rightfully deserves to be called a virtuoso of the palimpsest.

Aleksandra Shatskikh, PhD, is an art historian and a world authority on the Russian avant-garde. She is the author of numerous books, and more than 250 articles on the art of Marc Chagall, Kazimir Malevich and other great avant-gardists. As visiting professor she has taught Russian art history at the University of South California, University of Maryland and the University of Texas at Austin.

However, Kelly goes even further: in addition to using aged paper - its thin brittle sheets creating a fold line paving the background with regular collage elements – he focuses on paper, treating it as the recipient of information.

The invention of papermaking and its industrial production have advanced civilizational processes, making it possible to accumulate and replicate in written and printed texts information on discoveries, historical events, and scientific research, or admire works by great poets and writers.

Robert Kelly loves, understands and takes advan-tage of this: he turns the paper medium, which carries meaning, into stripes, squares, and rectan-gles and uses such new elements as a background.

Such background can be incredibly intriguing: the artist fragments sheets with typed or handwritten characters, often leaving only parts of words, cut phrases or just individual letters, i.e. he deletes mundane, practical and sometimes trivial sense contained in the original texts. It results in a specific dimension emerging in his works, some intangible deep-planar space – and compositions turn into a hermetic artistic expression nurturing a secret. Letters, syllables and parts of sentences are beyond usual understanding or use; they hold some exciting hidden meanings just like poems in an unknown language.

Sometimes the artist enhances the mysterious and imaginative atmosphere of his paintings by using the reverse side of posters as if someone behind the plane of the picture was reading them or as if we were ourselves behind the looking glass gazing at them.

In Tropos (2010), the global ideological meaning of the work is manifested in the works through a great landscape: celestial bodies – a black one (Tropos Black VI) or a red one (Tropos Red VII) – are floating over the skyline diving the plane by the golden ratio.

The ground below the horizon is formed by regular rectangles cut out from envelopes, stationary forms, letters, and printed media. The colours of the earth structures its earthly nature, since it is the authentic colour of the original sheets: it is faded or yellowed paper kept for decades or sometimes even centuries that itself has accumulated historical weight. Covering the painting surface with a protective layer of acrylic lacquer, Kelly protects the paper structure from destruction, giving it a kind of immortality.

The title Tropos derives from polysemic interpreta-tions of the Bible with an emphasis on the “way of being” as meaning; the artist chose it to emphasize his spiritually material “landscapes”. On the one hand, they have a universally cosmic sound, while on the other hand, they display an equally powerful polyphony of the human presence in the world - ties between people and traces of their relationships - that is, a representation of civilization itself.

The word “play” which fits so well the nature of Robert Kelly’s work, methods and intentions, takes yet another important dimension, as it is associated with music performance. Musicality - the harmony of combinations and sharpness of contrasts, reliance on rhythm, references to the bizarre stave (lines that convert vibration soundtracks into paper) (Road to Nice series, 1998-1999; Thicket series, 2000) - is an impressive and unique feature of Robert Kelly’s work.

The plastically imaginative paintings of the Nocturnes cycle (2010) with their fluctuating colours and harmoniously arranged constructions are driven by music; sometimes this music is inspired by the synthetic work of great filmmakers, and Kelly uses their names as a tuning-fork in the titles of his stunning homages (Antonioni Nocturne, Luchino Nocturne, Fellini Nocturne, all 2010).

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Mimesis CIII, 2008 Oil/Mixed Media on Canvas, 203 x 163 cm

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Mimesis CV, 2008Oil/Mixed Media on Canvas, 203 x 163 cm

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Mimesis CIX, 2009Oil/Mixed Media on Canvas, 102 x 81 cm

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Bibi Nocturne VIII, 2015Oil/Mixed Media on Panel, 43 x 36 cm

Bibi Nocturne III, 2012Oil/Mixed Media on Panel, 43 x 36 cm

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Tropos V, 2006Oil/Mixed Media on Canvas, 102 x 81 cm

Tropos IV, 2006Oil/Mixed Media on Canvas, 102 x 81 cm

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Nocturne Grande VIII, 2004Oil/Mixed Media on Canvas, 203 x 163 cm

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From Here To There II, 2015Oil/Mixed Media on Canvas, 183 x 142 cm

Nocturne Tropicale II, 2014Oil/Mixed Media on Canvas, 183 x 142 cm

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Luchino’s Nocturne II, 2014Oil/Mixed Media on Canvas, 183 x 142 cm

Woodstock Nocturne I, 2016Oil/Mixed Media on Canvas, 183 x 142 cm

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Antonioni Nocturne I, 2016Oil/Mixed Media on Canvas, 183 x 142 cm

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El Senor III, 2015Oil/Mixed Media on Linen, 66 x 55 cm

El Senor II, 2015Oil/Mixed Media on Linen, 66 x 55 cm

El Senor I, 2015Oil/Mixed Media on Linen, 66 x 55 cm

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Tropos Noir IX, 2012Oil/Mixed Media on Panel, 49 x 39 cm

Tropos Rouge XII, 2012Oil/Mixed Media on Panel, 49 x 39 cm

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Euclid’s Ist Draft VII, 2015Oil/Mixed Media on Masonite, 43 x 36 cm

Euclid’s Ist Draft IV, 2015Oil/Mixed Media on Masonite, 43 x 36 cm

Euclid’s Ist Draft VI, 2015Oil/Mixed Media on Masonite, 43 x 36 cm

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Nocturne IV, 1999Oil/Mixed Media on Board, 43 x 36 cm

Nocturne X (B), 1999Oil/Mixed Media on Board, 43 x 36 cm

Nocturne XII, 1999Oil/Mixed Media on Board, 43 x 36 cm

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Nocturne II, 1999Oil/Mixed Media on Board, 43 x 36 cm

Nocturne III, 1999Oil/Mixed Media on Board, 43 x 36 cm

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LIST OF ARTWORKS

- Nocturne I, Oil/ Mixed Media on Board, 43 x 36 cm, 1999

- Mimesis CIII, Oil/Mixed Media on Canvas, 203 x 163 cm, 2008

- Mimesis CV, Oil/Mixed Media on Canvas, 203 x 163 cm, 2008

- Mimesis CIX, Oil/Mixed Media on Canvas, 102 x 81 cm, 2009

- Bibi Nocturne III, Oil/Mixed Media on Panel, 43 x 36 cm, 2012

- Bibi Nocturne VIII, Oil/Mixed Media on Panel, 43 x 36 cm, 2015

- Tropos V, Oil/Mixed Media on Canvas, 102 x 81 cm, 2006

- Tropos IV, Oil/Mixed Media on Canvas, 102 x 81 cm, 2006

- Nocturne Grande VIII, Oil/Mixed Media on Canvas, 203 x 163 cm, 2004

- Nocturne Tropicale II, Oil/Mixed Media on Canvas, 183 x 142 cm, 2014

- From Here To There II, Oil/Mixed Media on Canvas, 183 x 142 cm, 2015

- Luchino’s Nocturne II, Oil/Mixed Media on Canvas, 183 x 142 cm, 2014

- Woodstock Nocturne I, Oil/Mixed Media on Canvas, 183 x 142 cm, 2016

- Antonioni Nocturne I, Oil/Mixed Media on Canvas, 183 x 142 cm, 2016

- El Senor III, Oil/Mixed Media on Linen, 66 x 55 cm, 2015

- El Senor I, Oil/Mixed Media on Linen, 66 x 55 cm, 2015

- El Senor II, Oil/Mixed Media on Linen, 66 x 55 cm, 2015

- Tropos Noir IX, Oil/Mixed Media on Panel, 49 x 39 cm, 2012

- Tropos Rouge XII, Oil/Mixed Media on Panel, 49 x 39 cm, 2012

- Euclid’s Ist Draft VII, Oil/Mixed Media on Masonite, 43 x 36 cm, 2015

- Euclid’s Ist Draft IV, Oil/Mixed Media on Masonite, 43 x 36 cm, 2015

- Euclid’s Ist Draft VI, Oil/Mixed Media on Masonite, 43 x 36 cm, 2015

- Nocturne IV, Oil/Mixed Media on Board, 43 x 36 cm, 1999

- Nocturne X (B), Oil/Mixed Media on Board, 43 x 36 cm, 1999

- Nocturne XII, Oil/Mixed Media on Board, 43 x 36 cm, 1999

- Nocturne II, Oil/Mixed Media on Board, 43 x 36 cm, 1999

- Nocturne III, Oil/Mixed Media on Board, 43 x 36 cm, 1999

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Born 1956 in Santa Fe, New Mexico

EDUCATION1978 M.A. Bachelor of Arts, Harvard University, Cambridge

SOLO EXHIBITIONS2016 Constructions/Construcoes, Mercedes Viegas Arte Contem-

poranea, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Concealed to Revealed, Octavia Art Gallery, New Orleans, LI

2015 Mercedes Viegas Arte Contemporanea, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

2014 John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, CA

Galleri Weinberger, Copenhagen, Denmark

2013 Quintenz Gallery & David Floria, Aspen, CO

2012 James Kelly Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM

2010 Spazio Bianco, Torino, Italy

AR Contemporary Art, Milan, Italy


2008 Leslie Feely Fine Art, New York, NY

2007 Linda Durham Contemporary Art, Santa Fe, NM

Tres Americas, Galeria Emma Molina, Monterrey, Mexico

David Floria Gallery, Aspen, CO

2006 Bentley Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ

Barbara Davis Gallery, Houston, TX

2005 AR Contemporary Art, Milan Italy

Bentley Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ

Doug Udell Gallery, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

2004 Linda Durham Contemporary Art, Galisteo, NM

John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, CA

Anne Reed Gallery, Ketchum, ID

2003 Linda Durham Contemporary Art, New York, NY

Scott White Contemporary Art, La Jolla, CA


Anne Reed Gallery, Ketchum, ID


Doug Udell Gallery, Vancouver, BC, Canada




TIMELINE

Barbara Davis Gallery, Houston, TX

Barbara Singer Fine Art, Cambridge, MA

1999 Anne Reed Gallery, Ketchum, ID

Linda Durham Contemporary Art, Galisteo, NM

Betsy Senior Gallery, New York, NY


1997 Anne Reed Gallery, Ketchum, ID

Linda Durham Contemporary Art, Galisteo, NM

Erickson and Elins Fine Art, San Francisco, CA

1996 Sarah Dobbs Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia

Hand Graphics, Santa Fe, NM




1993 Clark Gallery, Lincoln, MA

Victoria Munroe Fine Art, New York, NY



Victoria Munroe Fine Art, New York, NY


1989 Galleri Weinberger, Copenhagen, Denmark

1988 Maloney Gallery, Santa Monica, CA

Linda Durham Contemporary Art, Santa Fe, NM

1987 Victoria Munroe Fine Art, New York, NY



1983 Boston Now, Institute of Contemporary Art

1978 Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University, Cambridge MA

1976 Rainbow Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

1974 Plaza Gallery, Santa Fe Fiesta, Santa Fe, NM

GROUP EXHIBITIONS2016 Site Unseen 9, Jame Kelly Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM

2015 Manifesto, Mercedes Viegas Arte Contemporanea, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

PINTA Miami / Mercedes Viegas Arte Contemporanea, Miami, FL

Art Basel Miami Beach, Leslie Feely Fine Art, Miami, FL

Art 15 / Mercedes Viegas Arte Contemporanea, London, UK

20th Anniversary Show, Mercedes Viegas Arte Contempora-nea, Rio de Janeiro,

SP-Arte 2015 / Mercedes Viegas Arte Contemporanea, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Paintings and Sculpture, John Berggruen Gallery, San Fran-cisco, CA

2014 Basel Art Fair / John Berggruen Gallery, Miami, FL

PINTA Miami / Mercedes Viegas Arte Contemporanea, Miami, FL

ArtRio 2014 / Mercedes Viegas Arte Contemporanea, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Alongside, Barbara Davis Gallery, Houston, TX

Sao Paulo Arte, Mercedes Viegas Arte Contemporanea, Sao Paulo, Brazil

2013 Relocation Show, William Shearburn Gallery, St. Louis, MO

Brazil Art Fair, Mercedes Viegas Arte Contemporanea, Miami, FL

Palm Springs Fine Art Fair, James Kelly Contemporary, Palm Springs, CA

Robert Kelly and Mel Kendrick, Quintenz Gallery, Aspen, CO

2012 Realms Uncharted, Barbara Davis Gallery, Houston, TX

Abstraction, Beatriz Esguerra Art, Bogota, Colombia

Caveau, Galleria Riccardo Crespi, Milan, Italy

ADAA Art Show, Berggruen Gallery, New York, NY

Gallery Artists, Leslie Feely Fine Art, Miami, FL

Mile Marker, 3 Decades of Contemporary Art, Barbara Davis Gallery, Houston, TX

Palm Springs Fine Art Fair, William Shearburn Gallery, Palm Springs, CA

2011 Dallas Art Fair, Shearburn Gallery, Dallas, TX

Miami Basel, Leslie Feely Fine Art, Miami, FL

2010 Frank Stella/ Richard Diebenkorn/ Robert Kelly, Leslie Feely Fine Art, New York, NY

The Art of Giving / Xmas Show, John Berggruen Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

Black & White, Jason McCoy Inc, New York, NY

New Arrivals, Leslie Feely Fine Art, New York, NY

Black & White, Galleri Weinberger, Copenhagen, DK

2009 Dallas Art Fair, Shearburn Gallery, Dallas, TX

2008 Cleve Carney Collection, Elmhurst Art Museum, Elmhurst, IL

Tipping the Balance, The Drawing Room, East Hampton, NY

Linear Manifestations, Jeannie Freilich Contemporary, New York, NY

Robert Kelly /Mel Kendrick, David Floria Gallery, Aspen, CO

ADAA The Art Show 2008/ Berggruen Gallery, New York, NY

Chicago Art Fair 2008/ Shearburn Gallery, Chicago, IL

Summer Group Show, Leslie Feeley Fine Art, New York, NY

Basel Art Fair / John Berggruen Gallery, Basel, Switzerland

20th Year Anniversary Exhibition, Galleri Weinberger, Ko-benhavn, Denmark

2007 Basel Art Fair / Berggruen Gallery, Miami, FL

Art Miami / Shearburn Gallery, Miami, FL

Group Show, Galleria Rosella Colombari, Milan, Italy

Group Show, The Drawing Room, East Hampton, NY

Year 07 / London Art Projects, AR Contemporary, Milan, Italy

Toronto Art Fair / Douglas Udell Gallery, Toronto, Canada

ADAA The Art Show 2007, New York, NY

Works on Paper and Related Sculpture, John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, CA

2006 25 Year Collage Show, Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Portland, OR

Basel Art Fair / Berggruen Gallery, Basel, Switzerland

Miami / Basel Art Fair 2006, John Berggruen Gallery, Mi-ami, FL

ADAA The Art Show 2006, New York, NY

2005 You Are Invited, Buschlen Mowatt Galleries, Palm Desert, CA

New Paintings, David Floria Gallery, Aspen, CO

MOMA Lecture Series, Greenwich, CT

palmbeach3, Scott White Contemporary Art, Palmbeach, CA

Six American Artists, AR Contemporary Art, Milan, Italy

2004 Miami / Basel Art Fair 2004, John Berggruen Gallery, Mi-ami, FL

Celebrating 23 Years, Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Portland OR

Sean Scully and Robert Kelly, Anne Reed Gallery, Ketchum, ID

2003 SITE/UNSEEN, James Kelly/Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM

Color/Form/Figure, John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, CA

Art Basel, Miami, John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, CA

Mano A Mano, Robert Kelly / Ricardo Mazal, Lendrum Fine Art, Los Angeles, CA

A Way With Words, John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, CA

1111, Chiaroscuro Contemporary Art & Photography, Santa Fe, NM

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Genius Loci, DMJM Rottet, Houston, TX

Bologna Art Fair, Sergio Tossi Arte Contemporanea, Flor-ence, Italy

An American 6, Sergio Tossi Arte Contemporanea, Florence, Italy

Six in the City, Linda Durham Contemporary Art, New York, NY

2001 Currents, Barbara Davis Gallery, Houston, TX

Eye Candy, Soma Gallery, La Jolla, CA.

Layerings, Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Portland, OR

Summer in the City, John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, CA

Summer Group Show, Senior & Shopmaker, New York, NY

2000 Mysticism and Desire, Patricia Hamilton F.A., Los Angeles

Summer Reading, Anne Reed Gallery, Ketchum, ID

Passion and Perspective, Sandy Carson Gallery, Denver, CO

Abstraction: Form To Field, Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Port-land, OR

The Art Show, Art Dealers Association of America,J. Berg-gruen Gallery, New York

Processes, Douglas Udell Gallery, Vancouver, BC

1999 Winter Group Exhibition, SOMA Gallery, LaJolla, CA

Group Show, Barbara Davis Gallery, Houston,TX

Minimalism, Soma Gallery, LaJolla, CA

Sheer Abstraction, Barbara Davis Gallery, Houston, TX

One Common Denominator, Anne Reed Gallery, Ketchum, ID

Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Taos: The City Series, Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, IA

Limited Edition Prints & Sculpture, Elizabeth Leach Gallery, New York, NY

Mary Judge & Robert Kelly,Two Person Show, Betsy Senior Gallery, New York,

1977 Smallest Show On Earth, Richard Levy Gallery, Albuquer-que, NM

The Reflected Spirit, Megan Fox, Santa Fe, NM

State of the Questions, Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, NM

1996 (New Prints) Andy Spence/Richmond Burton/Robert Kelly/Mel Kendrick, Quartet Editions, NY

Retrospective/Prospective: 1996-1997, Anne Reed Gallery, Ketchum, ID

SITE Santa Fe, Contemporary New Mexico Artists; Sketches & Schemas, Santa Fe, NM

Sheldon Art Gallery, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NB


Sarah Dobbs Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia


Twelfth Annual Salon Show, Clark Gallery, Lincoln, MA

1993 Works from the William Small Collection, Smith College, Northampton, MA

Eleventh Annual Salon Show, Clark Gallery, Lincoln, MA

Alumni Show, Carpenter Center, Harvard University, Cam-bridge, MA

1992 Works On Paper: Lyric with an Edge, Victoria, Munroe Fine Art, New York, NY

Tenth Annual Salon Show, Clark Gallery, Lincoln, MA

Summer Salon, Victoria, Munroe Fine Art, New York, NY

1991 Selected Works on Paper, Victoria, Munroe Fine Art, New York, NY

The Painters, Victoria, Munroe Fine Art, New York, NY

Ninth Annual Salon Show, Clark Gallery, Lincoln, MA

Collector’s Choice, Center for the Arts, Vero Beach, FL

Monotypes from the Garner Tullis Workshop, Persons/Lin-dell Gallery, Helsinki, Finland

1989-94 Mitchell/Goldberg/Kelly/Lovet, Galleri Weinberger, Co-penhagen, Denmark

1988 Gallery Artists, Linda Durham Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

Chicago International Art Exposition, Chicago, IL

Art And Architecture, Acock Schlegel Architects/Brenda Kroos Gallery, Columbus, OH

1989-92 Three Person Invitational, Linda Durham Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

Gallery Artists, Galleri Weinberger, Copenhagen, Denmark

1987 Los Angeles International Contemporary Art Expo

Sign of the Cross, Jamison/Thomas Gallery, Portland, OR

1986 Gallery Artists, Shelia Nussbaum Gallery, Millburn, NJ

Summer Show, Victoria, Munroe Fine Art, New York, NY

1985 Fourth Annual Salon Show, Clark Gallery, Lincoln, MA

1984 Krakow International Print Biennale, Poland

Linda Durham Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

Salon Show, Clark Gallery, Lincoln, MA

Summer Show, West End Gallery, Provincetown, MA

1983 Works On Paper, Victoria, Munroe Fine Art, New Haven, CT

Salon Show, Clark Gallery, Lincoln, MA

Best of Boston, Mona Berman Gallery, New Haven, CT

Gallery Artists, Impressions Gallery, Boston, MA

Group Show, Mills Gallery, Boston, MA

Color It Pastel, Paul Gallery, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH

AWARDS2013 Palm Springs Invited Guest Artist Award

1982 Finalist, Massachusetts Council of the Arts Grant, Drawing

1981 Finalist, Massachusetts Council of the Arts Grant, Painting

Michael Karolyi Memorial Foundation, Artist in Residence, Vence, France

1980 MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, NH

MUSEUM COLLECTIONS- University of New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque, NM

- The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY

- The Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, NM

- Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI

- Smith College Art Museum, Northampton, MA

- Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutger’s University, NJ

- Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, AL

- The Fogg Museum, Cambridge, MA

- Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

- The Margulies Collection, Miami, FL

- The McNay Museum of Art, San Antonio, TX

- New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM

SELECTED PRIVATE COLLECTIONS- AT&T, New York, NY

- Body Shop International, London, England

- Chemical Bank, London, England

- Chemical Bank, Wilmington, DE

- Christian Science Headquarters, Boston, MA

- Cleve Carney, Elmhurst, IL

- Colgate, New York, NY

- Combined Jewish Philanthropies, Boston, MA

- Dupont, Wilmington, DE

- General Mills, Minneapolis, MN

- Gillette, Boston, MA

- Grey Advertising, New York, NY

- Graham Gund, Cambridge, MA

- Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Kansas City, MO

- IBM, New York, NY

- Hallmark, Kansas City, MI

- Werner Kramarsky, New York, NY

- Marsh & McLennan, Inc., New York, NY

- Kayne Foundation, Los Angeles, CA

- Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, CA

- Mead Data Central, Dayton, OH

- William C. Mercer Collection, New York, NY

- Microsoft Corporation, Mountain View, CA

- Mitsubishi, New York, NY

- Morgan Guarantee Trust Company, New York, NY

- New England Life, Boston, MA

- The Olin Foundation, NY

- Pepsi Cola Company of Annapolis, MD

- Phillip Morris Co., Boston, MA

- Price Waterhouse, Boston, MA

- Scientific Atlanta Headquarters, Atlanta, GA

- Smith Barney, New York, NY

- Solomon Brothers, New York, NY

- Time Inc., New York, NY

- Wang, Boston, MA

- The Ginny Williams Foundation

- Wills Eye Hospital, Philadelphia, PA

- Dell Foundation, Austin, TX

- Boston Properties / GM Project, New York, NY

- Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, MO

First published in 2016 by Sophia Contemporary Galleryon the occasion of the exhibition:

ROBERT KELLYBlack on Bone: Selected Works28 September – 28 October 2016

All works © Robert Kelly

Publication © Sophia Contemporary Gallery 2016

Text © Aleksandra Shatskikh 2016

Published bySOPHIA CONTEMPORARY GALLERY11 Grosvenor Street, London, W1K 4QB, UKwww.sophiacontemporary.com

Designed by Denis Toom

Photography byCostas Picadas / Tom Powel Imagery, NYC

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