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Ellsworth Kelly stamps debut May 31

Ellsworth Kelly stamp pane
The Ellsworth Kelly stamp pane will feature 10 designs that each appear twice.

The Postal Service will release stamps honoring abstract artist Ellsworth Kelly on Friday, May 31.

In a career that spanned 70 years, Kelly (1923-2015) pioneered a distinctive style of abstraction based on real elements reduced to their essential forms.

His art — which included painting, sculpture and works on paper — was characterized by precise shapes rendered in bold, flat colors. Kelly also was one of the first artists to create shaped canvases and to integrate art with modern architecture.

The Ellsworth Kelly stamp pane will feature 10 designs that each appear twice.

Here’s a list of the works featured on the pane, along with their completion dates and where the pieces reside:

  • “Yellow White” (1961), Fondation Beyeler, Basel, Switzerland
  • “Colors for a Large Wall” (1951), Museum of Modern Art, New York City
  • “Blue Red Rocker” (1963), Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
  • “Spectrum I” (1953), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
  • “South Ferry” (1956), private collection
  • “Blue Green” (1962), promised to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
  • “Orange Red Relief (for Delphine Seyrig)” (1990), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain
  • “Meschers” (1951), promised gift to the Museum of Modern Art
  • “Red Blue” (1964), promised gift to the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City
  • “Gaza” (1956), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

The pane’s selvage features a detail from “Blue Yellow Red III” (1971), in the collection of Jack Shear, as well as Kelly’s name and his birth and death years.

Derry Noyes, a USPS art director, designed the stamps, which will be available at Post Offices and usps.com.

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