Installation view of Ellsworth Kelly: Eight Decades at the Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, NY (March 8–July 19, 2026). Courtesy the Parrish Art Museum and The FLAG Art Foundation. Photo: Jenny Gorman.
Panel | Ellsworth Kelly: Eight Decades
Panel discussion with artists Sarah Crowner, Sam Moyer, and Sara VanDerBeek, Moderated by Ellsworth Kelly Foundation Executive Director Ian Berry and Parrish Associate Curator Scout Hutchinson
July 10, 6 pm - 7 pm
Free for Members | Free for Resident Benefits PassHolders | $25 Guests of Member | $30 Adults | Free for Students & Children
To celebrate the exhibition Ellsworth Kelly: Eight Decades, on view at the Parrish through July 19, join us in the Lichtenstein Theater for a panel discussion on Kelly’s artistic legacy with artists Sarah Crowner, Sam Moyer, and Sara VanDerBeek. The conversation will be moderated by Ian Berry, Executive Director of the Ellsworth Kelly Foundation, and Scout Hutchinson, The FLAG Art Foundation Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the Parrish.
Advance registration is recommended. Limited spaces will be available at the door.
About the Exhibition
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 the “elusive forms” he observed around him. 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.
Exhibition Support
Ellsworth Kelly: Eight Decades is made possible, in part, thanks to the generous support of The FLAG Art Foundation.
The Parrish Art Museum’s programs are made possible, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, and by the property taxpayers from the Southampton School District and the Tuckahoe Common School District.
Panel | Ellsworth Kelly: Eight Decades
Panel discussion with artists Sarah Crowner, Sam Moyer, and Sara VanDerBeek, Moderated by Ellsworth Kelly Foundation Executive Director Ian Berry and Parrish Associate Curator Scout Hutchinson
July 10, 6 pm - 7 pm
Free for Members | Free for Resident Benefits PassHolders | $25 Guests of Member | $30 Adults | Free for Students & Children
To celebrate the exhibition Ellsworth Kelly: Eight Decades, on view at the Parrish through July 19, join us in the Lichtenstein Theater for a panel discussion on Kelly’s artistic legacy with artists Sarah Crowner, Sam Moyer, and Sara VanDerBeek. The conversation will be moderated by Ian Berry, Executive Director of the Ellsworth Kelly Foundation, and Scout Hutchinson, The FLAG Art Foundation Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the Parrish.
Advance registration is recommended. Limited spaces will be available at the door.
About the Exhibition
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 the “elusive forms” he observed around him. 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.
Exhibition Support
Ellsworth Kelly: Eight Decades is made possible, in part, thanks to the generous support of The FLAG Art Foundation.
The Parrish Art Museum’s programs are made possible, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, and by the property taxpayers from the Southampton School District and the Tuckahoe Common School District.
