A comprehensive survey of rarely seen collages from the master of abstraction Over the course of more than 50 years, renowned American artist Ellsworth Kelly made approximately 400 postcard collages, some of which served as exploratory musings and others as studies for larger works in other mediums. They range from his first monochrome in 1949 through his last postcard collages of crashing ocean waves, in 2005. Together, these works show an unbounded space of creative freedom and provide an important insight into the way Kelly saw, experienced and translated the world in his art. Many postcards illustrate specific places where he lived or visited, introducing biography and illuminating details that make these pieces unique among his broader artistic production. Ellsworth Kelly: Postcards is the most extensive publication of Kelly's lifelong practice of collaged postcards. Ellsworth Kelly (1923-2015) was born in Newburgh, New York. In 1948 he moved to France, where he came into contact with a wide range of classical and modern art. He returned to New York in 1954 and two years later had his first exhibition at the Betty Parsons Gallery. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, organized his first retrospective in 1973. Subsequent exhibitions have been held at museums around the world, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, Tate in London, Haus der Kunst in Munich and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

Now available in a new accessible format - the definitive monograph on one of the most revered artists of our time Ellsworth Kelly will forever be remembered as one of the most distinctive and influential artists of our time. This book, the last created in close collaboration with the artist, maps his prolific and diverse oeuvre from the 1940s to his final projects before his death in late 2015. Featuring a newly designed cover, this hardback edition brings Tricia Paik's critically acclaimed volume to a new audience of readers.

Essay by Harry Cooper.

This work provides a detailed description of artists' creation and use of postcards, from 1900 to the present day. The book features 400 actual-size images of postcards by many well-known artists, including Rachel Whiteread, Ellsworth Kelly, and David Hockney.

Ellsworth Kelly, a distinguished contemporary American artist, is one of the great talents of his generation. His work, with its array of flat, sharp-edged forms and unmodulated color, figures significantly in the history of nongestural abstraction-a hybrid of the geometric and biomorphic traditions.