Leon Kelly

"This book is the first major monograph on the American painter Leon Kelly (1901-1982). Due to an innately reclusive disposition, Kelly died in comparative obscurity, but he was recognized in the 1940s for a style of painting that virtually defined Surrealism for an unknowing, yet curious and admiring American public. His visual flights of fancy - birds, insects and extraterrestrial beings - were rendered in a style so elaborate and precise that viewers could easily believe these magical creatures actually existed. His talent for drawing earned him a scholarship at the Pennsylvania Academy and a traveling fellowship for study in Europe, where he copied old-master paintings in the Louvre and developed the academic techniques he would carryover to his more experimental, modernist work. During the 1930s he exhibited frequently in Philadelphia and was part of the avant-garde group that fanned around the painter Arthur B. Carles." "A crucial event for Kelly was his discovery by Julien Levy, a prominent art dealer in New York who became a strong supporter, showing his work in his gallery and providing a monthly stipend in exchange for work. Kelly's closest aesthetic affiliation lies with the European Surrealists he encountered at the Julien Levy Gallery: Max Ernst, Salvador Dali, Yves Tanguy, Andre Masson, Pavel Tchelitchew and Eugene Berman," "The book concludes with a detailed chronology of Kelly's life, featuring transcriptions from an unpublished autobiographical account, as well as photographs and exhibition reviews from Kelly's private scrapbook."--BOOK JACKET.