Ellsworth Kelly and the Guggenheim Museum were made for each other. If it has become all but obligatory, before discussing any show at the uptown Guggenheim, to gripe about the museum’s inhospitality to art, then it must be conceded that his work feels at home in Frank Lloyd Wright’s rotunda. Kelly is an artist for whom the marriage of art and architecture has long been a fundamental concern, and his cognizance of how space and art shape each other is keen. Walking up the second rung of the museum and coming upon a balcony overlooking a gallery housing some of Kelly’s largest canvases is an agreeable experience. These pieces, with their skewed and sloping curves, carry on a conversation with Wright’s building that is sympathetic and often funny. Kelly undoubtedly had input (and probably a few sleepless nights as well) over how best to exhibit his art at the Guggenheim, and his retrospective is marked by a master’s sense of execution. Although “Ellsworth Kelly: A Retrospective”[1] contains over 250 objects, occupying almost the entire museum, it is never a chore to walk through. Indeed, the exhibit makes for a pleasurable stroll.

The cardinal reason for this is that Kelly’s oeuvreis resolute—utterly so, one is tempted to add. His is an art of single-minded clarity and there is no fuss or muss at the Guggenheim. With the exception of his collages and drawings, which are more open to chance and process, there are no untidy patches in