(American born France, 1901 - 1982)
Three Surrealist Drawings
Bather Throwing a Ball
Ink on paper, 6 1/2 x 5 inches
Signed and dated at lower right: “Leon Kelly 1957”
Inscribed on verso: “Bather Throwing Ball/Leon Kelly 1957”; “1111”
Little Girl Saying Goodbye
Ink on paper, 6 1/2 x 5 inches
Signed and dated at lower right: “Leon Kelly 58”
Inscribed on verso: “Petite fille/disant au revoir/Leon Kelly Pantaleon”; “1121”
Note: Pantaleon was Leon Kelly’s father’s name.
Moon Personages Becoming Plants
Ink on paper, 5 3/4 x 4 inches
Signed and dated at lower right: “Leon Kelly/1956”
Inscribed on verso: “Leon Kelly/1956”; “Moon Personages Becoming Plants”; “#814”
About the Artist
(American born France, 1901 - 1982)
Leon Kelly was born in Philadelphia in 1901. He entered the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Art (eventually the University of the Arts, now closed) in 1924. Afterwards he studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where his most influential instructors were Earl Horter and Arthur B. Carles. Their familiarity with French Fauvism and Cubism, as well as Horter’s own collection of avant-garde European art, exerted a considerable influence on Kelly.
Kelly began to experiment with Surrealism around 1940. In the 1940s and 1950s Kelly produced a body of paintings that, while of varied style, was consistent enough in its fantastical and Surrealist affiliation to present a coherent vision. He used a broad range of saturated colors that distinguished his paintings from those of other Surrealists: an American Surrealist with an intensely personal vision.
