Composition #45

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.