Curve 1951

Here's an Ellsworth Kelly drawing, simply titled "Curve," made with what looks like a soft graphite pencil on off-white paper. Imagine Kelly starting off with a vague idea, maybe a memory of a shadow, a window, or the edge of a building. He begins drawing a line, a simple arc on the page. What’s so great is how this simple mark carries a whole history of seeing and feeling. You can see him, almost in slow motion, feeling his way through the curve, as if the pencil is an extension of his eye. I look at this and I think of Matisse, who Kelly loved, and his cut-outs, where a simple shape becomes everything. It makes you realize that artists are always in conversation, borrowing and riffing off of each other’s ideas. "Curve" is a testament to the power of reduction, showing us that sometimes, less really is more.