Jean-Pierre Criqui

The window as motif in the drawings and paintings of Ellsworth KellyThis monograph was copublished by Cahiers d'Art and Centre Pompidou on the occasion of the 2019 exhibition Ellsworth Kelly: Windows, which brought together, for the first time, the six Windows made by Ellsworth Kelly (1923-2015) in France between 1949 and 1950. Kelly's years in France were a period of perpetual invention, and are fundamental to an understanding of his work. As he wrote in 1969, "After constructing Window with two canvases and a wood frame, I realized that ... painting as I had known it was finished for me." This signal moment is evoked through more than 80 works, paintings, drawings, sketches and photographs, along with two beautiful essays by Yve-Alain Bois and Jean-Pierre Criqui. Ellsworth Kelly is one of the most important abstract artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, as well as a key figure in the rebirth of Cahiers d'Art: the publishing house was reopened in 2012 with an exhibition of Kelly's work in its legendary gallery, and, in collaboration with Yve-Alain Bois and the Ellsworth Kelly Foundation, it published the first volume of Kelly's Catalogue Raisonn of Paintings, Reliefs, and Sculpture, 1940-1953.

This catalogue for a show at the Tornabuoni Gallery in Paris pays homage to two outstanding Italian women artists of the second half of the 20th century, Carla Accardi Dadamaino (Eduarda Emilia Maino). Both embraced avant-garde art and theory while remaining free of dogmatism, and explored the characteristics and possibilities of painting and signs while forging their own distinct paths. They shared a strong belief in social and political involvement, and left an enduring mark on the history of art. In this book, their creative journey is beautifully illustrated with a vast selection of works and through contextual critical analyses. Text in English and French.