Spilling Over: Painting Color in the 1960s

Ellsworth Kelly’s abstract paintings are rooted in the world and lived experience. In Blue Green Red, he drew on the main colors used to mix the projected light of color television, which was a relatively recent invention at the time the work was made. Although direct in the symmetry of its forms, the painting’s intense colors prevent the image from being easily apprehended. Instead of rehashing the representations seen on television, Kelly responded to the way technology changes how we see—and to the act of perception itself.