Paul Kelpe
American, 1902-1985
Composition #45
INV-5323
Paul Kelpe
American, 1902-19851933
Composition #45
Paul Kelpe American, 1902-1985 →watercolordrawings (visual works)
Date
1933
Medium
Watercolor, with pen and black ink, over graphite on cream wove paper
Dimensions
22.9 × 16.2 cm (9 1/16 × 6 7/16 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Gift of the Estate of Gertrude Abercrombie
Paul Kelpe studied art in Hanover, Germany, before moving to the United States in 1925. By then he had already established a personal style of geometric abstraction, distinguished by smooth surfaces and areas of glowing color. He was a founding member of American Abstract Artists in New York. In the 1930s, Kelpe worked in a social realist style for the Federal Art Project, but he remained committed to abstraction, which he practiced in three-dimensional constructions as well as in watercolors such as this one. The artist settled in Chicago for a time, earning a doctoral degree in art history.