Postwar Education
Kelly used the generous G.I. Bill to study from 1946 to 1947 at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where he took advantage of the museum's collections, and then at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. There he attended classes infrequently, but immersed himself in the rich artistic resources of the city. He had heard a lecture by Max Beckmann on the French artist Paul Cézanne in 1938 and moved to Paris that year. There he got to know the Americans John Cage and Merce Cunningham, experimenting in music and dance, respectively; the French Surrealist artist Jean Arp and the abstract sculptor Constantin Brancusi, whose simplification of natural forms had a lasting effect on him. The experience of visiting artists in their studios — Brancusi, Alberto Magnelli, Francis Picabia, Alberto Giacometti, Georges Vantongerloo, among them — was transformative. While in Paris Kelly established his aesthetic.
Read more about this topic: Ellsworth Kelly
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