March 7 - April 27, 2024

Opening Reception: March 7, 2024, 5:30 - 7:30 pm

Elizabeth Leach Gallery is pleased to present a new exhibition of sculpture and watercolor from the estate of Lee Kelly. The gallery is proud to have shown sculpture, painting and works on paper by Lee Kelly since 1986. The Bennington Suite & Color Studies includes a selection of work which has never before been exhibited and spans across the artist’s impressive career, ranging from 1990 to 2020.

The Bennington Suite watercolors central to this exhibition were created during a reflective period in 1998 when the artist spent time at Bennington College, Vermont. The works include geometric layering and references to Mayan architecture. These pieces exhibit a unique combination of Kelly’s expressive brushwork combined with structural forms in the same composition. The sculpture included in the show focuses on painting as well, featuring Kelly’s use of bright colors on a selection of maquettes, wall sculpture and large scale sculpture. In displaying his watercolors and sculptures simultaneously, the stylistic parallels between mediums are immediately evident. The painted sculptures display similar color palettes, brushstrokes and shapes, some even appearing as if fully realized versions of forms explored in the Bennington Suite. These two aspects of Kelly’s work brought together, examine his distinctive exploration of painting in both 2D and 3D mediums. This show is a celebration of color and of the balance between the architectural and the gestural which Kelly mastered over the course of his life. 

Lee Kelly (1932-2022) is one of the most revered artists in the Pacific Northwest, best known for his monumental public sculptures throughout Oregon and the surrounding region. Born in 1932 in McCall, Idaho, Lee Kelly graduated from the Museum Art School at the Portland Art Museum (now known as the Pacific Northwest College of Art, PNCA) in 1959. Kelly's long, prestigious career and prolific nature have resulted in a significant body of work which can be seen in public and private collections throughout the country, including the Portland Art Museum (Portland, OR), Stanford University (Palo Alto, CA), New Orleans Art Museum (New Orleans, LA), Seattle Art Museum (Seattle, WA) and the City of Sapporo, Japan. As one of the most recognized artists in the Northwest, his modernist sculptures are a central focus at regional institutions such as Reed College, Oregon State University, Catlin Gabel School, the Oregon Health and Sciences University and the Washington Park Rose Garden. In 2012, one of his most significant works, Memory 99, was installed in Portland's North Park blocks, at the new home of PNCA. Kelly has been exhibiting at the Elizabeth Leach Gallery since the early 1980s. In 2010, he was the subject of a major career retrospective at the Portland Art Museum.