Jane Kelly (born 7 May 1956) is a journalist and artist, affiliated with the Stuckist art group.Milner, Frank ed. ''The Stuckists Punk Victorian'', p. 127,

National Museums Liverpool National Museums Liverpool, formerly National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside, comprises several museums and art galleries in and around Liverpool, England. All the museums and galleries in the group have free admission. The museum is a non ...

2004, She was dismissed from the ''

Daily Mail The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper and news websitePeter Wilb"Paul Dacre of the Daily Mail: The man who hates liberal Britain", ''New Statesman'', 19 December 2013 (online version: 2 January 2014) publis ...

'' after exhibiting a painting of serial killer

Myra Hindley The Moors murders were carried out by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley between July 1963 and October 1965, in and around Manchester, England. The victims were five children—Pauline Reade, John Kilbride, Keith Bennett, Lesley Ann Downey, and Edward E ...

.Wells, Matt and Cozens, Claire (200
"Daily Mail sacks writer who painted Hindley picture"
''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

''. Retrieved 24 April 2006.

Life and work

Jane Kelly was born in

Charlton, London Charlton is an area of southeast London, England, in the Royal Borough of Greenwich. It is east of Greenwich and west of Woolwich, on the south bank of the River Thames, southeast of Charing Cross. An ancient parish in the county of Kent, it ...

, and educated at Pendeford High School,

Wolverhampton Wolverhampton () is a city, metropolitan borough and administrative centre in the West Midlands, England. The population size has increased by 5.7%, from around 249,500 in 2011 to 263,700 in 2021. People from the city are called "Wulfrunian ...

, and

Stirling University The University of Stirling (, gd, Oilthigh Shruighlea (abbreviated as Stir or Shruiglea, in post-nominals) is a public university in Stirling, Scotland, founded by royal charter in 1967. It is located in the Central Belt of Scotland, buil ...

, where she graduated in 1978 in history and fine art. 1978–79 she taught in

Sosnowiec Sosnowiec is an industrial city county in the Dąbrowa Basin of southern Poland, in the Silesian Voivodeship, which is also part of the Silesian Metropolis municipal association.—— Located in the eastern part of the Upper Silesian Indus ...

University,

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

, since when she has worked as a journalist, including the ''Walsall Observer'', ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its s ...

'', ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

'', ''

'' and ''

Daily Express The ''Daily Express'' is a national daily United Kingdom middle-market newspaper printed in tabloid format. Published in London, it is the flagship of Express Newspapers, owned by publisher Reach plc. It was first published as a broadshee ...

''. She said: :In the 1970s it was

Lynda Lee-Potter Lynda Lee-Potter (; 2 May 1935 – 20 October 2004) was a British journalist. She was best known as a columnist for the ''Daily Mail''. Early years Lynda Higginson was born into a working-class family in the mining town of Leigh, Lancash ...

against Jean Rook on the ''

'', and we younger women writers all thought we would inherit that. But it's faded out. There's been a change in editorial approach. Perhaps lippy women aren't as much of a draw as they were. In 1995, she took an Advanced Diploma in Painting at the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London. In 2000, she exhibited in the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purp ...

Summer Show. The same year, she was a guest artist of the Stuckist art group, and in 2003 founded The Acton Stuckists group. In 2004, she was an exhibitor in ''

The Stuckists Punk Victorian ''The Stuckists Punk Victorian'' was the first national gallery exhibition of Stuckist art.Moss, Richard"Stuckist's Punk Victorian gatecrashes Walker's Biennial Culture24, 17 September 2004. Retrieved 3 December 2009. It was held at the Walker ...

'' show at the

Walker Art Gallery The Walker Art Gallery is an art gallery in Liverpool, which houses one of the largest art collections in England outside London. It is part of the National Museums Liverpool group. History of the Gallery The Walker Art Gallery's collection ...

during the 2004

Liverpool Biennial Liverpool Biennial is the largest international contemporary art festival in the United Kingdom. Every two years, the city of Liverpool hosts an extensive range of artworks, projects, and a programme of events. The biennial commissions leading ...

. At the time she was a writer on the

, but was dismissed after a painting by her, ''If We Could Undo Psychosis 2'' featuring

, was exhibited in the show. The painting shows a family group of a mother and child with child-killer

substituted for the father and holding a teddy bear. The incident was reported on the front page of ''

'' newspaper, which commented: :Stuckism, the art movement founded by

Tracey Emin Tracey Karima Emin, Order of the British Empire, CBE, Associate of the Royal Academy, RA (; born 3 July 1963) is a British artist known for her autobiographical and confessional artwork. Emin produces work in a variety of media including drawi ...

's former boyfriend to oppose the pretensions of Britart, claims to advocate 'honest, uncensored expression'. Unfortunately, the ''

'' does not appear to share those values. It described how the paper welcomed a previous work exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Show by Kelly showing London Mayor

Ken Livingstone Kenneth Robert Livingstone (born 17 June 1945) is an English politician who served as the Leader of the Greater London Council (GLC) from 1981 until the council was abolished in 1986, and as Mayor of London from the creation of the office ...

in the context of the 1944 Stauffenberg plot against

Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

. The ''Daily Mails managing editor, Lawrence Sear, who dismissed Kelly, described as "absolute rubbish" the claim that the loss of her job was related to her artwork. She has said that she was never given a full reason for her dismissal, but that she had previously also got into trouble by trying to introduce the term "

German expressionism German Expressionism () consisted of several related creative movements in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin during the 1920s. These developments were part of a larger Expressionist movement in north and central ...

" into some copy about the performing dwarves used in the MGM film, The Wizard of Oz, some of whom came from Weimar Germany. She said that the acting feature editor at the time had never heard of such a thing and told her "what the fuck is German Expressionism? I have never heard of it and neither have our fucking readers." Her own explanation of her painting in the show catalogue was: :I've always been fascinated by Myra Hindley's disastrous life and because hers was the first horrible crime I knew about as a child. I wanted to see what she might have looked like in the kind of family situation she was always denied. The painting sold to a

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been ...

Commissioner A commissioner (commonly abbreviated as Comm'r) is, in principle, a member of a commission or an individual who has been given a commission (official charge or authority to do something). In practice, the title of commissioner has evolved to in ...

for £3,500. In December 2006, her show, ''Stupid English Men'', was held in a

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

gallery, Art Café. Her painting of Tim Walker, ''

The Sunday Telegraph ''The Sunday Telegraph'' is a British broadsheet newspaper, founded in February 1961 and published by the Telegraph Media Group, a division of Press Holdings. It is the sister paper of ''The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', k ...

s theatre critic and diarist, was stolen from the gallery. In August 2007, she appeared in the documentary, ''The Daily Mail Diet'', on

Al Gore Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Gore was the Democratic nom ...

Current TV Current TV was an American television channel which broadcast from August 1, 2005, to August 20, 2013. Prior INdTV founders Al Gore and Joel Hyatt, with Ronald Burkle, each held a sizable stake in Current TV. Comcast and DirecTV each held a smal ...

internet video site, where she showed a painting of ''Daily Mail'' editor,

Paul Dacre Paul Michael Dacre (; born 14 November 1948) is an English journalist and the former long-serving editor of the British right-wing tabloid the ''Daily Mail''. He is also editor-in-chief of DMG Media, which publishes the ''Daily Mail'', ''The Ma ...

behind a

prawn cocktail Prawn cocktail, also known as shrimp cocktail, is a seafood dish consisting of shelled, cooked prawns in a Marie Rose sauce or cocktail sauce, served in a glass. It was the most popular hors d'œuvre in Great Britain, as well as in the United S ...

, which Kelly said represented "a little bit of taste, but very predictable, bland and no surprises—it's from a different age where people had a more limited palate", and that she had depicted him as a stern figure as he "loves the 50s he wants people to go back to a time of discipline"."Wednesday August 22: Putting Dacre in the picture
''

'', 24 August 2007 (scroll down). Se
the painting
Retrieved 28 March 2008. She explains the other figure in the painting: "The Mail has always been slightly prurient and a bit scared of sex and I wanted this figure to represent that—it's slightly nasty and a bit threatening." The documentary, on the same principle as the film ''

Supersize Me ''Super Size Me'' is a 2004 American documentary film directed by and starring Morgan Spurlock, an American independent filmmaker. Spurlock's film follows a 30-day period from February 1 to March 2, 2003, during which he ate only McDonald's f ...

'', showed film maker Nick Angel consuming only one news product—the ''Daily Mail''—for four weeks, a diet, which Kelly considered, "dangerous—it would be like eating hamburgers and nothing else—you're starving yourself." ''The Guardian'' challenged ''Daily Mail'' journalists to print out her picture and post it on the newsroom wall. Kelly's work is mainly preoccupied with

The Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

and she sees herself as a "post-holocaust painter". She has visited Zandvoort beach, 15 minutes from

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

, where

Anne Frank Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank (, ; 12 June 1929 – )Research by The Anne Frank House in 2015 revealed that Frank may have died in February 1945 rather than in March, as Dutch authorities had long assumed"New research sheds new light on Anne Fra ...

used to go regularly as a child, accompanied by her family. Kelly made a painting based on this visit which was auctioned by

Sotheby's Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, and ...

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom ...

on 28 April 2006, in aid of victims of trauma. The painting was sold for £1,500 to an Irish collector. Kelly said, "It was rather a lonely job going out to Zandvoort to make the drawings for the painting and sometimes I doubted my sanity in doing it at all." Her work has been shown at the Cristus Gallery, Sandgate, The Royal Academy Summer Show, The Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, The White Cube, London, the Sackville Gallery, London, the Excel Centre, Manchester, the MacRobert Arts Centre, Stirling and the Wolverhampton City Art Gallery. In May 2010, she was diagnosed with

ovarian cancer Ovarian cancer is a cancerous tumor of an ovary. It may originate from the ovary itself or more commonly from communicating nearby structures such as fallopian tubes or the inner lining of the abdomen. The ovary is made up of three different cel ...

. She has kept a blog on her dealings with the

NHS The National Health Service (NHS) is the umbrella term for the publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom (UK). Since 1948, they have been funded out of general taxation. There are three systems which are referred to using the " ...

called ''Icantbelieveitsreallycancer''.ICANTBELIEVEITSREALLYCANCER blog
/ref>

Gallery

Image:Jane Kelly. Happy Family.jpg, ''Happy Family'' Image:Jane Kelly. Psychosis 1.jpg, ''If We Could Undo Psychosis 1'' Image:Jane Kelly. Death of Sandy.jpg, ''Death of Sandy'' Image:Jane Kelly. You Fuck You're in My Blood.jpg, ''You're in My Blood You Fuck''

Notes and references

External links

Jane Kelly's paintings on the Stuckism International website

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kelly, Jane 1956 births Living people 20th-century English women artists 21st-century English women artists Alumni of Central Saint Martins Alumni of the University of Stirling Alumni of the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama English contemporary artists English women painters British contemporary painters Painters from London People from Charlton, London Stuckism

Life and work

Gallery

See also

Notes and references

External links