John kelly artist biography
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In 1923 Town and Country Homes, Inc., offered Kelly an opportunity to illustrate Hawaiian real estate locations for prospective residents. Other famous series by Kelly include the Cargo & Steamship Series and the Sea Odyssey series. Kelly has lived in all three countries and for the past decade has resided in west Cork, Ireland.
The artist’s first hardcover book was printed by Collier Press in Kyoto, Japan in 1984 at the famous Nissha printing village. ft. Displaying a precocious and prodigious talent, Kelly advanced quickly to study at the Art Center College of Design in the Los Angeles area.
In addition, Kelly studied under and collaborated with Lynton Kisteler to produce unique maritime works that now reside at the Smithsonian Museum.
1939)
“By working aboard a vessel, you have a better feeling for painting a vessel. In what was a successful anti-branding branding campaign the award winning labels have become iconic Australian beer labels.
Kelly’s work is held in many museums and galleries in Australia and also the Guangdong Museum in China.
As a winner of the 1995 Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship, he travelled to London to study as an Affiliate Student at the Slade School of Art from 1996 to 1997. To learn more about collecting, pricing, value, or any other art information, please contact one of our International Art Consultants. In the UK he exhibited regularly with the prestigious Piccadilly Galleries in Cork Street, London and then Agnews Gallery, and has continued to do so with Merville Galleries.
As a painter, sculptor and printmaker Kelly engages across mediums and also writes, having written for Art Monthly (Australia & UK) and Circa magazine (Ireland).
In Australia Kelly is best known for his paintings and large sculptures of William Dobell’s cows, papier-mâché creations used during WWII in an attempt to confuse enemy aircraft as to the location of the Australian airbases.
American Fine Art, Inc. is proud to feature the original works and limited editions of John Kelly. His collections have reached over 75,000 throughout the world.
Influenced by the rich tapestry of his life experiences and world travels, Kelly's body of work is impressive in many ways, but especially in its far reaching international scope.
John began pursuing etching with great interest, eventually working almost exclusively in drypoint and then aquatint. His most recent exhibitions have been in Sydney (Look and Put) and London (British Art Fair).
John Melville Kelly, painter and printmaker, was born in Oakland, California in 1879. His publications and shows have been distributed in international locations like Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Tahiti.
His family were seafaring folk, and he worked on four different ships as a merchant marine seaman off the Canadian and Alaskan coasts, which would later inspire much of his artwork. He has also printed with the Ettinger Atelier in New York, as well as other notable studios worldwide. Kelly is a painter, lithographer, multimedia artist, lecturer, instructor, and musician.
Kelly was the first American artist to render landscapes of the People’s Republic of China in a lithographic suite after the governmental change.
John Kelly died in Honolulu in 1962.
The Hawaii State Art Museum, the Honolulu Academy of Arts, and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, Missouri), Saint Joseph College Art Gallery (West Hartford, Connecticut) and the San Diego Museum of Art (San Diego, California) are among the public collections holding work by John Melville Kelly.
See a list of available inventory for John Kelly
John Kelly
(Scottish, b.
Before long, his imagery was popular in creating an idealized vision of island life and his reputation quickly increased in the 1930s and '40s.
John Melville Kelly was the author and illustrator of "Etchings and Drawings of Hawaiians" published in 1943 and also "The Hula as Seen in Hawaii" published in 1955.
Kelly was born in Scotland, and lived in Canada as a child. We look forward to giving you the one on one attention you deserve when building your fine art collection. We hope you find our website helpful and look forward to seeing you in Scottsdale soon.
John Kelly
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Born in Scotland into a seafaring family in 1939, Kelly immigrated to Canada as a young boy.