“Austin,” the only freestanding structure by the late artist Ellsworth Kelly, was completed two years after his death and realized in its full stained-glass splendor. Located on the University of Texas at Austin campus, the white-stone chapel—built in a cruciform shape—is part of the university’s Blanton Museum of Art. The non-denominational building features stained-glass windows arranged in tumbling squares and starburst patterns alongside Kelly’s signature motifs, including black-and-white marble panels intended to evoke the stations of the cross. The chapel’s serene white surfaces create a backdrop for richly colored reflections as sunlight passes through the glass, an immersive effect Kelly intended to foster contemplation.
From Feb. 18–April 29 at the Blanton Museum, the exhibition “Form into Spirit: Ellsworth Kelly’s ‘Austin’” invites visitors to explore Kelly’s language of color and form through early paintings and drawings from 1948–1954, created while he lived and worked in France. The show brings together works that examine Judeo-Christian ideas, mid-1980s models and designs for the Austin chapel, and pieces that trace four themes central to Kelly’s practice—Spectrum, Black and White, Color Grid, and Totem—each of which is reflected in the chapel itself.
Highlights on display include Spectrum Colors Arranged by Chance IX (1953), a collage on paper that demonstrates Kelly’s interest in ordered chance and chromatic relationships; Eglise, Marly (1944), an ink drawing reflecting early architectural and spiritual concerns; Model for Chapel (1986), a mixed-media sculpture showing Kelly’s architectural approach to sacred space; and Study for Stations of the Cross (1987), an ink-and-graphite work that informed the marble panel treatments in the completed chapel. Together, these pieces illuminate how Kelly translated minimalist forms and bold color into an environment designed for reflection and quiet engagement.
The Austin chapel stands as a rare example of an artist’s full-scale architectural realization. Its clean geometry, luminous stained glass, and restrained material palette represent Kelly’s lifelong pursuit of clarity in form and color. Visitors to the Blanton can experience both the finished chapel and the preparatory works that led to it, gaining insight into how an abstract visual vocabulary can produce a deeply felt spatial and contemplative experience.