Ellsworth Kelly : Aux bords de l’eau

June 27 – November 15, 2026

Exhibition curator : Éric de Chassey

The Fondation Maeght presents a major exhibition dedicated to the American artist Ellsworth Kelly. Titled Ellsworth Kelly – By the Water’s Edge, the exhibition explores—for the first time—the presence of water in the artist’s work, through both an iconographic and methodological approach developed by Éric de Chassey, guest curator and leading specialist of the artist. Through this unprecedented thematic analysis, the exhibition stands as an important contribution to art history, offering a new perspective on Ellsworth Kelly’s oeuvre and working method.

“In my paintings, I do not invent; my ideas come from a constant investigation of the appearance of things.” Ellsworth Kelly, 1991

A major figure in American art, Ellsworth Kelly (1923–2015) is particularly renowned for his large-scale abstract works. Although fully non-figurative, these works maintain a constant connection to the artist’s way of seeing the world. Liquid elements, in particular, captivated his attention throughout his life, giving rise to observational drawings, abstract paintings and sculptures, as well as collages whose forms enter into a complex relationship with specific visual experiences that took place by the water’s edge.

Kelly continuously sought out the presence of water, spending significant time along oceans, seas, rivers, and streams—particularly in Belle-Île in Brittany, on the Île Saint-Louis in Paris, in Giverny, Sanary, and along the French Riviera, as well as at Coenties Slip (New York) and in Saint Martin (Caribbean). In his works, he does not simply reproduce visible reality; rather, he seeks to translate the very perception one may have of water—its colors, the effects of light on its surface—creating collages in which abstract, colored shapes seem to emerge from the liquid surface before being translated into fully realized paintings and sculptures. For Kelly, aquatic landscapes were an inexhaustible source of inspiration, filled with visual paradoxes: a flat surface containing spatial complexity; stillness in perpetual motion; a vast expanse suggesting infinity, yet bounded by edges.

The exhibition, conceived by Éric de Chassey—who has devoted several exhibitions and numerous texts to the artist’s work—in close partnership with the Ellsworth Kelly Studio, brings together more than one hundred works ranging from monumental pieces to postcard formats—paintings, sculptures, and works on paper. It offers a renewed reading of a central theme that long remained unexplored, yet lies at the heart of the creative practice of one of the most influential artists of the 20th and 21st centuries.

The Fondation Maeght thus celebrates an artist who formed close ties with the Maeght family at an early stage. In 1948, Kelly returned to France thanks to a G.I. Bill scholarship awarded for his participation in the 1944 D-Day landings. He was quickly exhibited in Paris at the Galerie Maeght and stayed several times at the family’s home in Saint-Paul-de-Vence. His friendship with Adrien Maeght lasted until the end of his life.

fondation-maeght.com