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Peter Kelly (1931 - 2019)Show: Profile | Artworks

Peter was trained in Graphic Design at the West Ham School of Art and Technology and afterwards at the Central School of Art and Design in London. He pursued a career as a graphic designer, illustrator and painter and was elected an associate member of the Royal Society of British Artists in 1980 and a full member in 1982. He was awarded the De Laszlo Medal in 1997.

His work is held in the Public Collections of HSBC Bank, Ing Barings Charterhouse Securities, Laing Construction Company, Ford Motor Company, Higgs & Hill, Kennedys, Solicitors. Over the years he held a number of Solo Exhibitions, mainly at John Adams Fine Art but also at Waterman Fine Art, and Thompson’s Galleries, Aldeburgh, as well as showing at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, the Discerning Eye Exhibition, Laing Competition, Hunting Group Exhibition, Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander Watercolour Exhibition, Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize Exhibition, New English Art Club Exhibition, W H Patterson’s ‘Venice in Peril’ Exhibition, Small Paintings Exhibitions, Royal Watercolour Society Open, Catto Gallery, Chappel Gallery, Langham Gallery, New Grafton Gallery, Bruton Street Gallery, Thompsons Galleries Marylebone, and Oakham Galleries.

He was elected a member of the New English Art Club in 2007.

Peter’s work avoids touristic clichés and instead explores a world of empty rooms, mysterious corridors, atmospheric canals, ancient silent churches, In his pictures he has an ongoing attraction with the quality of light whether it be in dramatic skies over a London panorama, the fading light in the city of Bruges or a shaft of light in his signature interior scenes. Peter’s works are invariably paintings of stillness, of moments suspended in time. In a world of increasing pace and rapidity, they offer an escape into a world of calm and quiet reflection.

Peter was married with two sons and lived in the village of Stock in Essex.


Peter Kelly died on the 17th of April 2019

Site last updated: 24th of September 2024