Aloysius O'Kelly
, Irish, 1853-1936
Title
In the ConservatoryMediumWatercolour and gouache on paper
Dimensions
Image: 30 x 22.5 cm
Signedlower left: A. O’Kelly
Credit LineBequeathed, Patricia and David Simana, 2017
Object numberNGI.2017.29
DescriptionDublin-born Aloysius O'Kelly came from a nationalist family, his brother being one of Parnell’s staunch supporters and an MP. Brought up in London, in 1874 he enrolled at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris, where he studied under Léon Bonnat and the historical genre painter Jean-Leon Gérôme. O’Kelly was one of the first Irish artists to travel to Brittany in 1876, before the ‘great influx’ of the 1880s. In Concarneau he painted beach scenes with sailboats and studies of Breton men and women in traditional dress. He kept an address in London, and in 1881 contributed a number of drawings to the Illustrated London News. He exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy, the Royal Society of British Artists, and the Royal Hibernian Academy between 1876 and 1893. He also exhibited a few works at the Royal Institute of Oil Painters and the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours. An avid traveller, O’Kelly painted scenes in such diverse locations as Connemara and Cairo. The influence of Egypt along with his former master Gérôme are evident in his Orientalist subjects. Before 1909 he moved to the United States, where he settled in New York. In 1912 he held exhibitions in New York, Chicago and Milwaukee. He was also a member of the New York Water Colour Club. O’Kelly quite typically records the young woman’s attire with great accuracy. Such attention to detail is evident in many of the artist’s North African Orientalist pictures, which themselves owe a debt to work of Jean-Léon Gérôme. O’Kelly skilfully captures the dappled sunlight as it filters through the trellis of the conservatory across the leaves of the potted plants and white drapes.
ProvenanceBequeathed, Patricia and David Simana, 2017