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Leon Kelly Paintings

American, 1901-1982
Leon Kelly, born in 1901, studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia. Awarded a traveling scholarship from that institution in 1924, he studied in Paris, France at the Grande Chaumiere. Other teachers included Arthur B. Carles, Jean Auguste Adolphe, Earl Horter and Alexandre Portinoff. Essentially a Surrealist painter, Kelly did wide-ranging work that went from painterly to meticulous Surrealism, Cezanne-inspired watercolors, and Cubist painting. In the 1940s, Julian Levy, the Surrealist dealer, handled Kelly's work in New York City. Kelly also exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Art Annuals (1933-34, 1939-46, 1966); Corcoran Gallery Biennials, Washington, D.C. (three times from 1935-47); Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; had a 1965 retrospective exhibition at the International Gallery, Baltimore, Maryland; Long Beach, New Jersey (1968); Richard Feigen Gallery, Chicago, Illinois (1968, 1970); Newark Museum, New Jersey (1969); and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Kelly's paintings are in the collections of three New York city museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Whitney Museum of American Art; and Museum of Modern Art; as well as Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut; Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California; Sara Roby Foundation Collection at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts; Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, Lincoln, Nebraska; Newark Museum, New Jersey; and the Tel Aviv Museum, Israel.
(Biography provided by Peyton Wright Gallery)
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Artist: Leon Kelly
Woman at Basin, Picasso Style Portrait of a Female Nude, American Modernist
By Leon Kelly
Located in Doylestown, PA
"Woman by Basin" by Philadelphia born modernist and surrealist painter Leon Kelly, is a framed and matted portrait of a female nude. The 22.5" x 17.75" mixed media on artist board i...
Category

1920s American Modern Leon Kelly Paintings

Materials

Mixed Media

Landscape with Trees
By Leon Kelly
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Landscape with Trees Watercolor on paper, 1929 Signed in pencil lower right corner Obviously influenced by the Cezanne works in the collection of his patron Alfred C. Barnes of Phila...
Category

1920s American Modern Leon Kelly Paintings

Materials

Watercolor

Bathers, Modernist Nudes, Oil on Canvas, Signed and Titled
By Leon Kelly
Located in Doylestown, PA
"Bathers" by Philadelphia born modernist painter Leon Kelly, is a fantasy nude scene of two female figures, one with towel in hand, one only depicted as a portrait within the paintin...
Category

20th Century American Modern Leon Kelly Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Tabletop Still Life, Modernist Still Life with Food, Flowers, and Wine, Signed
By Leon Kelly
Located in Doylestown, PA
"Tabletop Still Life" by Philadelphia born modernist and surrealist painter Leon Kelly, is a framed painting of a set dinner table with food, flowers, and wine. The 36" x 44" oil on ...
Category

Early 20th Century American Modern Leon Kelly Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

Untitled
By Leon Kelly
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Untitled Cubist Abstraction Signed and dated lower right Watercolor, charcoal and gouache on paper, 1922 Provenance: Estate of the Artist Schroeder, Romero & Sh...
Category

1920s Cubist Leon Kelly Paintings

Materials

Charcoal, Watercolor, Gouache

White Pidgeon, La Paloma Blanca, Modernist Abstract, 1962, Framed Oil on Canvas
By Leon Kelly
Located in Doylestown, PA
"White Pidgeon - La Paloma Blanca" by Philadelphia born modernist and surrealist painter Leon Kelly, is a large scale Modernist Abstract painting. The 40" x ...
Category

1960s Abstract Leon Kelly Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Secundo Congreso Feminino, Large Canvas Surrealist Female Group Portrait, 1969
By Leon Kelly
Located in Doylestown, PA
"Secundo Congreso Feminino " by Philadelphia born modernist painter Leon Kelly, is a large scale, surrealist painting of a group gathering showing women in the nude. The 60" x 42" oi...
Category

1960s Surrealist Leon Kelly Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Venus Retrieved from the Hands of Death, Surrealist, Nudes, 1959, Oil on Canvas
By Leon Kelly
Located in Doylestown, PA
"Venus Retrieved from the Hands of Death" by Philadelphia born modernist painter Leon Kelly, is a fantasy nude group scene of one female and two male figures. The 49" x 36" oil on ca...
Category

1950s Surrealist Leon Kelly Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Self Portrait, Oil on Board, Signed and Dated, 1925, American Modernist
By Leon Kelly
Located in Doylestown, PA
"Self Portrait" by Philadelphia born modernist painter Leon Kelly, is a moody and atmospheric self portrait of the artist in younger years at age 24. The 18" x 16" oil on board, fram...
Category

1920s American Modern Leon Kelly Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

Lunar Encounter with Child, Surrealist Portrait, Oil on Canvas, 1958, Framed
By Leon Kelly
Located in Doylestown, PA
"Lunar Encounter with Child" by Philadelphia born modernist painter Leon Kelly, is a large, brightly colored surrealist portrait of two figures. The 40" x 30" oil on canvas was paint...
Category

1950s Surrealist Leon Kelly Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

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Simka Simkhovitch WPA W/C Painting Gouache American Modernist Bouquet of Flowers
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Simka Simkhovitch (Russian/American 1893 - 1949) This came with a small grouping from the artist's family, some were hand signed some were not. These were studies for larger paintings. This is a miniature watercolor and gouache vibrant, colorful bouquet of flowers in a vase. Simka Simkhovitch (Симха Файбусович Симхович) (aka Simka Faibusovich Simkhovich) (Novozybkov, Russia May 21, 1885 O.S./June 2, 1885 N.S.—Greenwich, Connecticut February 25, 1949) was a Ukrainian-Russian Jewish artist and immigrant to the United States. He painted theater scenery in his early career and then had several showings in galleries in New York City. Winning Works Progress Administration (WPA) commissions in the 1930s, he completed murals for the post offices in Jackson, Mississippi and Beaufort, North Carolina. His works are in the permanent collections of the Dallas Museum of Art, the National Museum of American Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Born outside Kyiv (Petrograd Ukraine) into a Jewish family who owned a small department store. During a severe case of measles when he was seven, Simcha Simchovitch sketched the views outside his window and decided to become an artist, over his father's objections. Beginning in 1905, he studied at the Grekov Odessa Art School and upon completion of his studies in 1911 received a recommendation to be admitted to the Imperial Academy of Arts. Though he enrolled to begin classes in architecture, painting, and sculpture at the Imperial Academy, he was dropped from the school roster in December because of the quota on the number of Jewish students and drafted into the army. Simchovitch served as a private in the 175th Infantry Regiment Baturyn [ru] until his demobilization in 1912. Re-enrolling in the Imperial Academy, he audited classes. Simka Simkhovitch exhibited paintings and sculptures in 1918 as part of an exhibition of Jewish artists and in 1919 placed 1st in the competition "The Great Russian Revolution" with a painting called "Russian Revolution" which was hung in the State Museum of Revolution. In 1922, Simkha Simkhovitch exhibited at the International Book Fair in Florence (Italian: Fiera Internazionale del Libro di Firenze). In 1924, Simkhovitch came to the United States to make illustrations for Soviet textbooks and decided to immigrate instead. Initially he supported himself by doing commercial art and a few portrait commissions. In 1927, he was hired to paint a screen for a scene in the play "The Command to Love" by Fritz Gottwald and Rudolph Lothar which was playing at the Longacre Theatre on Broadway. Art dealers began clamoring for the screen and Simkhovitch began a career as a screen painter for the theater. Catching the attention of the screenwriter, Ernest Pascal, he worked as an illustrator for Pascal, who then introduced him to gallery owner, Marie Sterner. Simkhovitch's works appeared at the Marie Sterner Gallery beginning with a 1927 exhibit and were repeated the following year. Simkhovitch had an exhibit in 1929 at Sterner's on circus paintings. In 1931, he held a showing of works at the Helen Hackett Gallery, in New York City and later that same year he was one of the featured artists of a special exhibit in San Francisco at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park. The exhibit was coordinated by Marie Sterner and included four watercolors, including one titled "Nudes". He is of the generation of Russian Soviet artists such as Isaac Pailes, Serge Charchoune, Marc Chagall, Chana Orloff, Isaac Ilyich Levitan, and Ossip Zadkine. In 1936, Simkhovitch was selected to complete the mural for the WPA Post office project in Jackson, Mississippi. The mural was hung in the post office and courthouse in 1938 depicted a plantation theme. Painted on the wall behind the judge’s bench, “Pursuits of Life in Mississippi”, a depiction of black workers engaged in manual labor amid scenes of white professionals and socialites, was eventually covered over in later years during renovations due to its stereotypical African American imagery. Simka painted what he thought was typical of Jackson. His impression of pre-civil rights Mississippi was evidently Greek Revival column houses, weeping willow trees, working class families, and the oppression of African Americans. He painted African American men picking cotton, while a white man took account of the harvest and a white judge advised a white family, calling it Pursuits of Life in Mississippi. Though clearly endorsed by the government and initially generally well-received, the mural soon raised concerns with locals as the climate toward racial segregation began to change. The main concern was whether depictions that show African Americans in subjugated societal roles should be featured in a courtroom. The following year, his painting "Holiday" won praise at an exhibition in Lincoln, Nebraska. In 1940, Simkhovitch's second WPA post office project was completed when four murals, "The Cape Lookout Lighthouse and the Orville W. Mail Boat", "The Wreck of the Crissie Wright", "Sand Ponies" and "Canada Geese" were installed in Beaufort, North Carolina. The works were commissioned in 1938 and did not generate the controversy that the Jackson mural had. The main mural is "The Wreck of the Crissie Wright" and depicts a shipwreck which had occurred in Beaufort in 1866. "The Cape Lookout Lighthouse and the Orville W. Mail Boat" depicted the lighthouse built in 1859 and the mail boat that was running mail during the time which Simkhovitch was there. The boat ran mail for the area until 1957. "Sand Ponies" shows the wild horses common to the North Carolina barrier islands and "Canada Geese" showed the importance of hunting and fishing in the area. All four murals were restored in the 1990s by Elisabeth Speight, daughter of two other WPA muralists, Francis Speight...
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Cubist Still-Life
By (after) Pablo Picasso
Located in Wilton Manors, FL
Beautiful ca. 1960s copy of a Picasso still-life from 1930s by Eve Peri. Watercolor on paper, image measures 5.5 x 8 inches; 9.5 x 11 inches framed. Signed under the matting as depic...
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Cubist Still-Life
Cubist Still-Life
H 11.5 in W 9 in D 0.5 in
1980s Erotic nude male portrait of artist's lover, Iconic piece from gay history
Located in Harkstead, GB
This incredibly striking portrait, painted in a fiery palette captures an intimate moment between the artist and sitter who were lovers. Philip Core (1951-1989) Portrait of Adrian Ffooks, 4th/7th regiment Signed and dated 1987 to the reverse Oil on board 30 x 17¾ inches without the frame 35 x 23 inches with the frame Provenance: Gifted as a wedding present to Kit Hesketh-Harvey by his future wife. The artist was a friend of the couple and they had introduced Core to FFooks. Kit Hesketh Harvey co-wrote the screenplay (with James Ivory) for E.M.Forster’s Maurice and he had called upon Ffooks, who was renowned for his horsemanship, to be a stunt double for the equestrian scenes in this iconic film. Philp Core grew up in New Orleans, the son of a well-to-do family. At just seven he won the Vieux Carré Open Artists Competition. He was sent to a military academy, and from 1963 to the Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts. He attended Harvard University, where he won a number of art and literature prizes. As a schoolboy he self-published a booklet of drawings Palm Fronde Alphabet. An interest in Aubrey Beardsley and fin de siècle artists and writers, led to him spending time in Paris working with Philippe Jullian on his book The Symbolists, before returning to Harvard to complete an honours thesis on Belgian symbolist Fernand Khnopff. He graduated in 1973. Under the pseudonym Féllippé Fecit, he produced a series of erotic drawings for the poet John Glassco for his book Squire Hardman, and in 1968 in the Japanese style for The Temple of Pederasty, a free adaption by Glassco of a work by Japanese expatriate writer Ken Sato. Of this time, George Melly...
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Madonna of the Picture, 1930s Framed Figural Devotional New Mexico Oil Painting
By Howard Schleeter
Located in Denver, CO
Original 1939 oil painting by New Mexico modernist, Howard Schleeter (1903-1976), Madonna of the Picture includes a santo of the Virgin Mary, a still life of flowers in a vase and a crucifix. Presented in a custom hand-carved frame, outer dimensions measure 21 x 17 x 2 inches. Image size is 16 x 12 inches. Painting is clean and in very good vintage condition - please contact us for a complete condition report. Provenance: Private Collection, California Expedited and international shipping is available - please contact us for a quote. About the Artist: Howard Schleeter, the son of a commercial artist, studied formally at the Albright Art School in his hometown of Buffalo, New York. However, his studies at Albright were brief and the artist considered himself to be primarily self-taught. He later met Charles Lindbergh while working as an airplane mechanic. However, he soon chose to make his living entirely as an artist and, in 1929, he traveled to New Mexico. The following year he married and the couple made New Mexico their permanent home. Schleeter studied under Brooks Willis during the 1930's and worked in several mediums including gouache, watercolor, oil, scratchboard and engraving. The Great Depression took its toll on Schleeter who occasionally found work digging ditches to make ends meet. In 1936, his financial status greatly improved when he received the first of several commissions from the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Though he worked primarily in abstraction, the five murals he completed for a WPA commission in the Melrose Public School library are realistic depictions of the West. He worked on several more New Deal commissions during the years of 1936 and 1942 in locations including Santa Fe, Clayton, and Washington D.C. During this time, Schleeter furthered his income by teaching at a Las Vegas, New Mexico, art gallery during 1938 and 1939. In 1945, the Encyclopedia Britannica referred to Schleeter as "an artist's artist." He also received local attention when he became one of the first artists chosen by Peter Hurd and Jane Mabry for his significant contributions to New Mexico's art. Schleeter taught at the University of New Mexico during 1950-1951 and 1954. Member: Art League of New Mexico Exhibited: Kansas Art Institute, 1936-1938; New Mexico State Fair, 1939 (prize); New Mexico Art League, 1939 (prize); Cedar City, New Mexico, 1941-1946; Philadelphia Artist Alliance, 1945 (solo); deYoung Memorial Museum, 1946; Art Institute of Chicago, 1947; Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe, 1951 (purchase prize), 1955 (purchase prize); Vienna, Austria, 1952; Guggenheim Museum, 1954; Karlsruhe Museum, Germany, 1955; Stanford University, 1955 (solo); New Mexico Highlands University, 1957 (purchase prize); Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, 1958; Swope Art Gallery Works Held: A&M College, New Mexico (mural); Art League of New Mexico; Cedar City Institute of Religion; Encyclopaedia Britannica; Miners Hospital, Raton, New Mexico (mural); Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe; Research Studio, Maitland, Florida; University of New Mexico Further Reading: Artists of 20th-Century New Mexico: the Museum of Fine Arts Collection, Museum of New Mexico Press for the Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, 1992.; The Illustrated Biographical Encyclopedia of Artists of the American West, Peggy and Harold Samuels, Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York, 1976.; Taos and Santa Fe: the Artist's Environment, 1882-1942, Van Deren Coke, University of New Mexico Press for the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, TX and the Art Gallery, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM: 1963.; Treasures on New Mexico Trails: Discover New Deal Art and Architecture: Kathryn A. Flynn ed., Sunstone Press, Santa Fe, NM: 1995.; Who Was Who in American Art 1564-1975: 400 Years of Artists in America, Vol. 1. Peter Hastings Falk, Georgia Kuchen and Veronica Roessler, eds.,Sound View Press, Madison, Connecticut, 1999. 3 Vols. ©David Cook...
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1930s American Modern Leon Kelly Paintings

Materials

Board, Oil

Mid Century Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco Landscape
Located in Soquel, CA
Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco by Garrett Price (American, 1896-1979). Signed "Garrett" lower right. Unframed. Image size, 11.75"H x 15.25"W. G...
Category

1950s American Modern Leon Kelly Paintings

Materials

Paper, Watercolor

Original-Dahlias, Monsteras & Six Birds-UK Awarded Artist, Abstract-Expression-
Located in London, GB
In this Series, Shizico delves deep into the intricacies of form and contrasts the bold interplay of yellow and black. She then introduces a third element, adding layers of complexit...
Category

2010s Abstract Expressionist Leon Kelly Paintings

Materials

Gold Leaf

Cubist Portrait of a Couple, Abstract Geometric Faces, Yellow Warm Tones Diptych
By Natalia Roman
Located in Barcelona, ES
These series of paintings by Natalia Roman gather their inspiration from geometric, minimalist shapes and paintings from the beginning of Modernism, with a special emphasis on Art De...
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2010s Cubist Leon Kelly Paintings

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Oil Pastel, Oil, Acrylic, Watercolor, Gouache

"Morning" Nude Couple in Bed - Figurative Composition in Oil on Canvas
Located in Soquel, CA
Delicate and expressive depiction of a nude couple by Byron Richard Rodarmel (American, 1932-2007). A couple is intertwined on a bed, rendered in a soft palette of peach, yellow, pin...
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Mid-20th Century American Modern Leon Kelly Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

"Nude Musicians" WPA Mid 20th Century American Modernism LGBT Social Realism Gay
Located in New York, NY
Carl Gustaf Simon Nelson, American (1898-1988) "Nude Musicians," 30 x 35 inches, oil on canvas Signed and dated 1938 signature lower right. Provenance: Collection of Seymour Stein Bio Carl Gustaf Simon Nelson (1898 - 1988) A painter, graphic artist and teacher whose paintingfocus was color and content landscapes, Nelson at age five immigrated with his family to Sioux City, Iowa from Sweden in 1903. He studied at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts* from 1920 to 1921, then at the Art Students League* in New York from 1923 to 1927 with Kimon Nicolaides and Kenneth Hayes Miller. He taught at the American Peoples School of New York, an adult education project; at the Cambridge School of Design from 1948 to 1952; and finally at the Boston YMCA until 1968. His work was exhibited at the Carnegie...
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1930s American Modern Leon Kelly Paintings

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Canvas, Oil

"Cowboy Boots" - Bay Area Figurative Movement
By Patricia Gren-Haynes
Located in Soquel, CA
Bay Area School figurative of a cowboy and hats by Berkeley artist Patricia Gren Hayes (American, b- 1932), circa 1983. Signed "Gren Hayes 1983" upper center and signed and titled "Cowboy Boots" on verso. Unframed. Size: 16"H x 20"W. Bay Area Figurative...
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1980s American Modern Leon Kelly Paintings

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Belisama
By Oswaldo Vigas
Located in Palm Beach, FL
Predominantly recognized as a self-taught painter, he also worked in architectural murals, sculptures, ceramics, prints and drawings. Vigas is one...
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Canvas, Oil, Gouache, Board

Belisama
Belisama
H 44 in W 42 in D 1 in
Previously Available Items
Tenderness of Maternity, Large Canvas Surrealist Portrait of a Couple, 1968
By Leon Kelly
Located in Doylestown, PA
"Tenderness of Maternity " by Philadelphia born modernist painter Leon Kelly, is a large scale, surrealist portrait painting of two figures representing an honest yet intimate moment...
Category

1960s Surrealist Leon Kelly Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Modernist Abstract Landscape, Oil on Canvas, 1923, Signed and Dated, Framed
By Leon Kelly
Located in Doylestown, PA
"Abstract Landscape" by Philadelphia born modernist and surrealist painter Leon Kelly, is a small sized, framed landscape painting. The 5.5" x 9" oil on canvas is mounted to board, s...
Category

1920s American Modern Leon Kelly Paintings

Materials

Board, Canvas, Oil

Modernist Still Life, Oil on Board, Monogrammed, Abstract Art
By Leon Kelly
Located in Doylestown, PA
"Modernist Still Life" by Philadelphia born abstract and surrealist painter Leon Kelly, is a small sized, framed abstract still life painting. The 6" x 9" oil on board is monogrammed on the top left and features vibrant forms and colors. It is framed in an original frame. Provenance: Estate of the Artist Leonard Nelson...
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Early 20th Century American Modern Leon Kelly Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

Fruit and Paring Knife, Modernist Still Life, Oil on Canvas, 1923, Framed
By Leon Kelly
Located in Doylestown, PA
"Fruit and Pearing Knife" by Philadelphia born modernist and surrealist painter Leon Kelly, is a framed still life painting. The 10" x 14" oil on canvas is signed "Leon Kelly" on the...
Category

1920s American Modern Leon Kelly Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Mosquito on Orange Mountain, Surrealist Landscape, Oil on Canvas, 1943, Framed
By Leon Kelly
Located in Doylestown, PA
"Mosquito on Orange Mountain" by Philadelphia born modernist painter Leon Kelly, is a framed, surrealist landscape painting. The 14" x 8" oil on canvas is signed on the lower right, ...
Category

1940s Surrealist Leon Kelly Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas

"The Fortune Teller, " Leon Kelly, American Surrealism, Woman with Playing Cards
By Leon Kelly
Located in New York, NY
Leon Kelly (American, 1901 - 1982) The Fortune Teller (Woman with Playing Cards, a Bottle of Wine, and a Parrot), circa 1926 Oil on canvasboard 20 x 16 inches Signed lower right Housed in a distressed wooden frame Leon Kelly is admired as one of America’s most talented surrealist painters. He exhibited alongside Salvador Dali, Yves Tanguy, Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp, Arshile Gorky, Roberto Matta, and Eugene Berman at the premier gallery for Surrealism in America, the Julien Levy Gallery. However, it is widely acknowledged that along the path to a deep understanding of Surrealism, Kelly mastered many artistic styles. He skillfully moved from a modernist approach to Impressionism, through Pointillism, Purism, Fauvism, Geometric Abstraction, Analytical Cubism, and in the 1960’s, a bold, more robust Baroque style of painting and drawing. Kelly’s talent was clear from childhood, particularly his ability to draw. At 13, he took private painting lessons from Albert Jean Adolphe at the School of Industrial Art, now the University of the Arts, in Philadelphia. He enhanced his artistic education by copying Old Master paintings and drawing animals at the Philadelphia Zoo. Several years later, Kelly briefly studied sculpture with Alexander Portnoff before joining the Quartermaster Corp at the Army Depot at the outbreak of World War II. Kelly’s family’s financial situation changed in 1920 when his father’s tailoring business failed and his parents divorced. The young Kelly was now forced to support his mother and grandmother and over the next four years, he worked evenings at a bakery. With his days free, Kelly studied anatomy at the Philadelphia School of Osteopathy and mastered an understanding of the human body by dissecting a cadaver. Around this time, he met the artist Earl Horter with whom he studied etching. Horter had an important collection of European modern art which exposed Kelly to artists such as Brancusi, Matisse, Picasso and Braque, among others, and opened his mind to the new artistic movements in Paris. Kelly enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1922 where he flourished under the guidance of Arthur B. Carles. Kelly’s artistic talents were apparent and according to the artist’s family, Carles declared him to be his best student. In 1925, Kelly traveled in Europe for four months on a Cresson Fellowship. After his return to Philadelphia, he enrolled again at the Academy. Soon thereafter, Kelly moved to Paris where he lived for the next six years. While living in his apartment at 19 rue Daguerre he painted The Musician, a work that reflects Kelly’s engagement with Analytic Cubism as practiced by Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and Juan Gris. Although his finances during this period were bleak, Kelly’s intellectual and cultural life were rich. He met Henry Miller, James Joyce and the well-known anarchist and art critic Felix Feneon. At this time, museums and important collectors began purchasing his works and he received the patronage of Albert Barnes. While exploring the current modern styles, Kelly continued his practice of copying old master paintings at the Louvre. During this period, Kelly’s paintings were included in numerous exhibitions, both group and solo, primarily to favorable reviews. In October 1934, several of his works were among those included in the Second Regional Exhibition of Painting and Prints by Philadelphia Artists at the Whitney Museum in New York. At this time, Kelly created studies for a mural, now lost, in the School Administration Building under the Philadelphia Public Works of Art Project. In 1940, Julien Levy recognized Kelly’s talent immediately and included Kelly’s work in his gallery located on 57th St. in New York. The first exhibition in 1941 was held at the Art Alliance in Philadelphia and was followed the next year with a solo show in New York. Kelly’s second solo exhibition at Julien Levy Gallery was held in 1944. In a letter to Kelly, Tanguy reported that when Alfred Barr, the first director of the Museum of Modern Art, saw the exhibition, Barr declared that Kelly was one of the best American draftsmen. Surrealism, a movement which sought to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind, was now fully occupying Kelly’s canvases...
Category

1920s American Modern Leon Kelly Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

Leon Kelly paintings for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Leon Kelly paintings available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Leon Kelly in paint, oil paint, canvas and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the modern style. Not every interior allows for large Leon Kelly paintings, so small editions measuring 9 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Julio de Diego, Walter Beach Humphrey, and Frank Wilcox. Leon Kelly paintings prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $2,090 and tops out at $35,750, while the average work can sell for $19,000.

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