ELLSWORTH KELLY: A LIFE IN PICTURES

Ellsworth Kelly was 74 yesterday. Born in Newburgh, New York, he served in the Second World War before studying at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. In 1948 he went to live in France, where the influence of Picasso, Matisse and Arp led him towards his own brand of Abstract Expressionism. After returning to New York in 1954, Kelly joined a group of artists that included James Rosenquist, Agnes Martin, Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. He had his first solo exhibition in 1956. Since 1970 Kelly has lived in Spencertown in upstate New York, exploring sculpture and photography as well as painting. The Tate's retrospective, originally mounted last autumn in New York, is Kelly's first in Britain.

Cutting edge: `Green Angle', above (1990); below, `Gaza', painted between 1952 and 1956