Generative Art Timeline · Chapter 3: Analog Era (1950s)
1951
Spectrum Colors Arranged by Chance by Ellsworth Kelly
Composed during his time in France, this part of a series of chance-arranged spectrum collages marked the shift of Kelly’s work towards chance methodologies as well as work on a grid. Inspired by Dadaism and Surrealism, this preeminent example of chance in art has strongly influenced later generations of generative artists as well as bearing conceptual and form resemblance to the color chart work of Gerhard Richter.
Text by Peter Bauman. Generative Art Timeline, Le Random, fact-checked September 2026.
Sources
People
Ellsworth Kelly, Gerhard Richter, Jean Arp
Movements
Chance Art, generative art, Hard-Edge Abstraction, Material Generative Art, minimalism
Filed under
- Ideas
- abstraction, chance, Chance Art, collage, color, Dadaism, generative art, Geometric Abstraction, grid, Hard-Edge Abstraction, Material Generative Art, minimalism, Surrealism
- People
- Ellsworth Kelly, Gerhard Richter, Jean Arp
- Works
- Spectrum Colors Arranged by Chance
- Places
- Europe, France
Related moments
Echoes across time
- 1971 · Kenneth Martin, Chance and Order V, 1971-2
- 1973 · 1024 Colours by Gerhard Richter
- 1982 · Roman Verostko Debuts The Magic Hand of Chance Series
Le Random editorials
- Decoupling Generative Art with Philip Galanter, Peter Bauman, August 24, 2023
Le Random podcast
- Timeline Ch 3—Analog Era (1950s) with Georg Bak — listen with transcript on Le Random (10 Aug 2023, 65 min). Chapter 3’s episode. Apple Podcasts · Spotify