Ellsworth Kelly (1923–2015) spent his career making paintings and sculptures that looked like pure abstraction but were rooted in close, sustained observation of the world—a shadow on a wall, the curve of a staircase, the shape of light on a window. Throughout his life he returned again and again to water: Belle-Île, New York Harbor, the Côte d’Azur, the Caribbean. Now staging the first exhibition that examines this aspect of his practice, the Fondation Maeght presents drawings, collages, paintings, and sculptures in which Kelly translated not the look of water but the experience of perceiving it. The setting is fitting. Kelly was a close friend of the Maeght family, exhibited his work at their Paris gallery from the early 1950s, and stayed regularly in Saint-Paul-de-Vence. —Elena Clavarino