Collection 1940s–1970s

406A

In and Out of Paris

Ongoing

MoMA

Tickets Timed tickets Reserve timed tickets

Membership Become a member

Ellsworth Kelly. Colors for a Large Wall. 1951. Oil on canvas, sixty-four panels. 7' 10 1/2" x 7' 10 1/2" (240 x 240 cm). Gift of the artist. © 2018 Ellsworth Kelly
  • MoMA, Floor 4, 406 The David Geffen Galleries

After the ravages of World War II, Paris once again became the place where young artists gathered and picked up conversations about what art should be. Through contact with an older generation of avant-garde practitioners, they were exposed to the use of chance composition, primary color palettes, and geometric abstraction, which they applied in increasingly radical experiments. As artist Ellsworth Kelly remembered: “At the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, I noticed the large windows between the paintings interested me more than the art exhibited. . . . From then on, painting as I had known it was finished
for me.” By the end of the 1940s, these vocabularies had opened up new spaces for abstract painting. The contacts made in Paris between artists from places as far afield as the United States, Latin America, and Eastern Europe became an ongoing network of exchange, crossing ideological divides and the boundaries created by Cold War politics.

9 works online

Artists

Installation images

How we identified these works

In 2018–19, MoMA collaborated with Google Arts & Culture Lab on a project using machine learning to identify artworks in installation photos. That project has concluded, and works are now being identified by MoMA staff.

If you notice an error, please contact us at [email protected].

Licensing

If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA’s collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).

All requests to license audio or video footage produced by MoMA should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills or motion picture footage from films in MoMA’s Film Collection cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For licensing motion picture film footage it is advised to apply directly to the copyright holders. For access to motion picture film stills please contact the Film Study Center. More information is also available about the film collection and the Circulating Film and Video Library.

If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication, please email [email protected]. If you would like to publish text from MoMA’s archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [email protected].

Feedback

This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please send feedback to [email protected].