Image: Robert Fontaine Gallery, Miami
Robert Fontaine Gallery is focusing on Ellsworth Kelly’s 1964-65 ‘Suite of Twenty-Seven Color Lithographs’ in an artist spotlight issued August 13, 2026, pairing works from the series with context about Kelly’s long relationship to France and the Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence. The newsletter presents the suite as a set of related abstract works in which Kelly repeatedly uses simple geometric forms and shifts their color relationships, with six individual prints currently listed for sale on the gallery’s website.
The gallery’s spotlight emphasizes that the prints can seem restrained when seen one by one, but gain complexity as a group. According to the newsletter, Kelly’s approach depends on repetition and variation: a single shape may be recalibrated by a change in color, proportion or placement, altering how the eye reads the image. The text describes the suite as a visual vocabulary built from recurring forms rather than illusionistic depth or traditional pictorial space.
The publication places the series in relation to the Fondation Maeght, which it describes as especially resonant for Kelly’s work. The foundation opened on July 28, 1964, and was founded by Aimé and Marguerite Maeght, French art dealers, publishers and friends of major postwar artists. The building was designed by Catalan architect Josep Lluís Sert in collaboration with the Maeghts and artists including Joan Miró, Georges Braque and Alberto Giacometti. The newsletter says the institution is conceived not as a conventional museum, but as a place for artists to create, meet, exhibit and exchange ideas.
Kelly’s links to the Maeght circle are presented as central to the story. The newsletter says he first exhibited at Galerie Maeght in 1958, making original lithographs for ‘Derrière le Miroir’ and an exhibition poster. It also notes that Kelly spent the summer of 1963 in Saint-Paul-de-Vence at the Maeghts’ property, shortly before the foundation opened. In that framing, France was not simply another exhibition venue but an important part of his development after he moved there following the Second World War.
The suite, the newsletter says, was made in 1964-65 and published by Maeght Éditeur in Paris. Across the edition, Kelly uses related abstract forms while changing their color combinations and relationships. The gallery cites examples from the set including ‘Red Over Yellow’, ‘Black with White’, ‘Orange and Blue over Yellow’, ‘Jaune (Yellow)’, ‘Black (Noir)’ and ‘Dark Blue and Red (Bleu foncé et rouge)’. Each work is a lithograph, most in an edition of 75, with dimensions ranging from about 23 to 35 inches in width or height depending on the image.
The individual works listed on Robert Fontaine Gallery’s site include ‘Red Over Yellow’, 1964-65, a lithograph from the ‘Suite of Twenty-Seven Color Lithographs’ measuring 35 1/4 × 23 1/2 inches, edition of 75, signed, priced at $20,000. ‘Black with White’, 1964-65 is listed as a lithograph on Rives BFK paper, 35 1/4 x 23 3/4 inches, edition of 75, signed and numbered, also priced at $20,000. ‘Orange and Blue over Yellow’, 1964-65 is listed at 23 7/8 x 35 1/4 inches, edition of 75, signed and numbered, priced at $20,000.
Other examples on the gallery’s pages include ‘Jaune (Yellow)’, 1964-1965, a one-color lithograph on Rives BFK paper, edition of 75, signed, priced at $20,000; ‘Black (Noir)’, 1964-65, a lithograph on Rives BFK paper, 35 1/4 x 23 3/4 inches, edition of 75, signed and numbered, priced at $20,000; and ‘Dark Blue and Red (Bleu foncé et rouge)’, 1964-65, a color lithograph on BFK Rives paper, edition of 75, 23 1/4 x 34 inches, signed and dated, priced at $20,000.
