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Felix Kelly

Born 1917, Auckland, New Zealand.  Died 1994

Felix Kelly came to London in 1935 and began to paint in his spare time while working for an advertising agency and then during the war while he was in the RAF. He held his first exhibition at the Lefevre Gallery, London, in 1943 and became a full-time artist in 1947.

He became known as a painter of country houses in the UK and the USA.  His portraits of houses and gardens have a dreamlike, unreal verging on surreal, quality. He also produced murals, theatre designs, and book illustrations including Herbert Read's The Green Child. He designed many Shell Mex posters and was included in the exhibition Paradise Lost, at the Barbican Art Gallery, London, in 1987.

Drifter and Paddlesteamers