📝 Exhibition Description:

Olney Gleason is pleased to announce its debut participation in Art Basel Paris with a focused two-artist exhibition of work by Robert Indiana (1928–2018) and Ellsworth Kelly (1923–2015) in the fair’s Premise sector, drawn entirely from Indiana’s personal collection. Featuring rarely- and never-before-seen paintings and drawings created in the years of a private romance between the artists, this presentation provides a unique perspective to consider Indiana and Kelly’s reciprocal influence during a pivotal period of 20th-century American art.



Indiana met Kelly by chance in 1956 while working at a New York art store, kindling the start of a creative and romantic relationship. At Kelly’s recommendation, Indiana rented a studio on Coenties Slip in lower Manhattan, where both artists worked in close proximity and became immersed in an artistic milieu that would include Agnes Martin, James Rosenquist, Leonore Tawney, Jack Youngerman and others. Kelly—having recently returned from a formative sojourn in Paris—encouraged Indiana to abandon figuration in favor of hard-edge painting, informing his early experimentation with abstraction. Meanwhile, Kelly frequently drew portraits of Indiana, among other friends, artists, critics and collectors, reflecting a profound intimacy of subject matter. When their relationship came to an end in 1959 due to creative differences, Indiana continued to incorporate words in his paintings, soon arriving at his iconic LOVE composition, and Kelly transitioned his focus toward shaped canvases and irregular formats. Though their practices diverged in singular directions, the artists maintained an enduring friendship, and this critical period of intimacy, experimentation and exchange would prove foundational to their respective oeuvres.



The presentation is organized in collaboration with the Star of Hope Foundation, a non-profit, artist-endowed organization founded by Robert Indiana in 2016. It builds upon the momentum of rising institutional activity and scholarship surrounding Indiana, Kelly, and their contemporaries, including: Ellsworth Kelly. Shapes and Colors, 1949-2015, a major retrospective that traveled to Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, in 2024; Robert Indiana: The Sweet Mystery at Procuratie Vecchie, Venice, in 2024; The Artists of Coenties Slip at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 2025; and the group biography The Slip, published by Harper in 2023.