"She Whom Europe Has Been Pleased to HONOUR"

Radio Record, 3 July 1936, Page 19

"She Whom Europe Has Been Pleased to HONOUR"

Elizabeth Kelly, Christchurck:

Artist, and Her ~ Talented Husband (Specially written for the "Radio Record.")

HERE were three of us at the table, Elizabeth Kelly, Cecil Kelly and myself. The mellow light of the candles shed itself over the crystal, the champagne winked golden-clear in the goblets, roses and violets, expensively out of season, splashed colour across the old lace cloth; the fog, rising out of a Christchurch winter’s night, trailed clammy, futile fingers across the shuttered windows .. . this was a very special occasion. The afternoon papers had told of the award made to Elizabeth Kelly, New Zealand’s bestknown portrnit painter, of the Paris Salon’s coveted Silver Medal, the first to come to New Zealand. Cecil Kelly and I lifted our glasses very solemniv on that memorable nieht

in the winter of 1934 and toasted "she whom BHurope had been pleased to honour." Ina haze of cigarette smoke’ by "the fire after dinner we talked — of art-modern art, the days of Michael Angelo, the pre-Raphaelites, Augustus John, our own little. New Zealand school. John’s muchdiscussed "The. Girl in the Yellow Jacket" had been exhibited in New Zealand a few months before-we talked about that, too. , ; On an easel.in the shadows at the back of the room stood an almost completed portrait of John Schroder, associate editor ,of "The Press." It. was something of a secret at-the time-to-day, of course, that same portrait is a matter of. artistic history. I looked at it once or twice, and thought of the day, not so many years before, when John Schroder, then with "The Sun," called me into

his room and ,remarked, "Your literary style isn’t:bad-it’s improy-ing-but it’s, "still a bit-er-flowery." ". Another easel held a painting of Cecil: Kelly’ s-Lyttelton harbour viewed through the little pass at.the top of the Lyttelton-Sumner road. The clay banks had caught the purple tints of deepening shadow, the harbour below was a rich mixture of afternoon sunlight and deep blue water, the hills beyond-Mount Herbert, Rhodes Peak-reminded me of that line of Jessie Mackay’s, "the running ring of fire on the Canterbury hills." I still maintain that this is one of the finest things that Cecil Kelly has ever done. Since then Elizabeth Kelly’s work. has gone: from strength to strength, and her canvases from recognition to more recognition. First eame the Roval Academy-word

that one of Elizabeth Kelly’s portraits had been accepted for exhibition. Next the Paris Salon, two portraits this time, and again congratulations were showered down. In the next year both the Royal Academy: and the Paris Salon »wanted Mrs. Kelly’s portraits-and this time the Academy gave her a coveted place "on the line." Later came requests _ from the London Portrait Society and the Royal Cambrian -Society. But now comes a singular honour. The: corporation of the city of Lincoln, England, desires to hold a. "‘one-man show" of Mrs, Kelly’s work, the paintings to be exhibited in the public art gallery. _ The pictures, mainly portraits, are those which have been exhibited during the past year or two in France and England. . It is difficult, over the span of years, to recall all the "(Continued on page 58.)

World Recognition of N.Z. Artist (Continued from page 19.)

portraits that will be included in this ‘collection, but I remember ‘Miss Edith May," a slim, dark girl with lovely hands and a proudly-set head, portraits of Miss Helen Buchanan, a Christchurch girl and member of an old Banks Peninsula family, of Mrs. Henry Crust, who belongs to the wellknown Ballin family, and "Margaret Hatherley," that was exhibited last year in Paris. Both Elizabeth and Cecil Kelly are represented in most of the bigger New Zealand art galleries. Wellington has a fine portrait of Mrs. Geoffrey Myers, daughter-in-law of New Zealand’s Chief Justice; Christchurch has landscapes belonging to this talented husband and wife. Mrs. Kelly recently completed a fine portrait of Christchurch’s Grand Old Man, Sir Arthur Dudley Dobson, whose: death in 1934 left Canterbury sadly poorer. I seem to have said little of the work of Cecil Kelly, but, in a different sphere, it has the’ same sure touch and verve ag that of his wife's. A very fine canvas, "Lake Wanaka," was hung at the exhibition of the Royal Society of British. Artists last year, and this.same canvas, together with "Governor’s Bay" and "Mount Cook from the Tasman Valley," is. to be exhibited in the Birmingham Art Gallery this month. Mr. Kelly is on the staff of the Canterbury College School of Art. It seems inevitable that New Zealand will eventually lose Cecil and Blizabeth Kelly. (Maybe I’m quite wrong and they have no intention of leaving New Zealand, come what may.) But it seems that in the case of. these two artists, who are earning more recognition abroad than all the rest of our ’ New Zealand artists put together, that . England and the Continent would be a much easier place to work in than this country .of ours. It looks from this that I am trying to speed them from our shores. Heaven forbid!-I think too much of them both. But I do know that their work has. reached a standard where it. can compare more’ than favourably with some of the finest work in Europe. —