Untitled by Ellsworth Kelly

Ellsworth Kelly

1988

Copper

J. Paul Getty Museum

This thin, slightly curving bronze rises to a height of more than twelve feet. At its tip and bottom, the piece is flat. A matte-black patina provides a smooth and neutral surface that emphasizes the form's sharp silhouette. In sunlight, the sculpture casts its own double--a dramatic and attenuated shadow. In the early 1970s, Ellsworth Kelly began creating totem-like sculptures in a variety of materials including wood, aluminum, and weathering steel. This work is one of a handful of "totems" Kelly executed in bronze. The artist used a source from antiquity--the rigid, upright statues of young men known as kouroi . The J. Paul Getty