Grace Veronica Kelly (January 31, 1877 – January 10, 1950) was an American

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

and

art critic An art critic is a person who is specialized in analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating art. Their written critiques or reviews contribute to art criticism and they are published in newspapers, magazines, books, exhibition brochures, and catalogue ...

. An accomplished

watercolor Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (Commonwealth English; see American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin 'water'), is a painting metho ...

ist, she was a member of the Cleveland School of artists, and served as ''

The Plain Dealer ''The Plain Dealer'' is the major newspaper of Cleveland, Ohio; it is a major national newspaper. In the fall of 2019, it ranked 23rd in U.S. newspaper circulation, a significant drop since March 2013, when its circulation ranked 17th daily an ...

'''s principal art critic from 1926 to 1949.

Biography

Kelly was born in Cleveland. Her parents were Thomas and Mary Hart Kelly, Irish immigrants. At age 15, she entered the

Cleveland School of Art The Cleveland Institute of Art, previously Cleveland School of Art, is a private college focused on art and design and located in Cleveland, Ohio. History The college was founded in 1882 as the Western Reserve School of Design for Women, at f ...

, studying under painter

Henry Keller Henry George Keller (April 3, 1869 – August 3, 1949) was an American artist who led a generation of Ohio watercolor painters of the Cleveland School. Keller's students at the Cleveland School of Art and his Berlin Heights, Ohio summer school ...

. After graduating, she served as an instructor there until 1904, when she left to begin work as a

commercial art Commercial art is the art of creative services, referring to art created for commercial purposes, primarily advertising. Commercial art uses a variety of platforms (magazines, websites, apps, television, etc.) for viewers with the intent of promo ...

ist. She helped found the Cleveland Women's Art Club in 1912, and exhibited there throughout her career. In 1926, her writing gained the attention of ''Plain Dealer'' editor Erie C. Hopwood, who invited her to become the newspaper's art critic. Her stories on the Guelph Treasure in 1931 helped the

Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. Located in the Wade Park District of University Circle, the museum is internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian art, Asian and Art of anc ...

draw record crowds to view the objects. An avid traveler, she visited Ireland and Guatemala, painting those areas in addition to her Northeast Ohio home. Kelly suffered a stroke in November 1949 and died the following January at the age of 73. ''The Plain Dealers

editorial An editorial, or leading article (UK) or leader (UK), is an article or any other written document, often unsigned, written by the senior editorial people or publisher of a newspaper or magazine, that expresses the publication's opinion about ...

page wrote that her colleagues would "long cherish the memory of an artist and writer who enriched their lives with Irish wit and points of view that opened up picturesque vistas that otherwise would have been missed." She never married, and was survived by her brother, John, and three sisters, Mary, Julia, and Maria.

Exhibitions

Kelly's paintings can be found in the collection of the

. She was a regular participant in the museum's May Show, an annual juried exhibition of works by Northeast Ohio artists. She exhibited 151 paintings there between 1919 and 1950, winning multiple awards. Four of her works were included in the

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...

's 1931 ''Exhibition of Water Colors, Pastels Drawings And Miniatures By American & Foreign Artists'', which took place January 23 through February 24, 1931 and also featured works by George Pearse Ennis,

Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky ( – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter and art theorist. Kandinsky is generally credited as one of the pioneers of abstract art, abstraction in western art. Born in Moscow, he spent his childhood in ...

Paul Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented wi ...

, and Roderick Fletcher Mead. The Cleveland Women's Club displayed 70 of her works in 1947. In 1998 and 1999, her work was shown along others in an exhibition organized by the Cleveland Artists Foundation and titled ''A Brush With Light: Watercolor Painters of Northeast Ohio''. The exhibition was also displayed at the

Ohio Arts Council The Ohio Arts Council (OAC) is an agency serving the U.S. state of Ohio. Its offices are in the Rhodes State Office Tower in Columbus, Ohio. History Established in 1965, its mission is to "foster and encourage the development of the arts and as ...

's Riffe Gallery in Columbus, Ohio. In 2003, her work was part of the Springfield Museum of Art's show ''In A Clear Light: The Triumph Of Ohio Watercolor Painters, 1870-1967''. Her paintings were also included in the Canton Museum of Art's ''The Cleveland School: Watercolor and Clay'' exhibit in 2012 and 2013.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kelly, Grace V. 1877 births 1950 deaths American art critics American watercolorists Painters from Ohio Artists from Cleveland Writers from Cleveland 20th-century American painters 20th-century American women painters American women watercolorists Cleveland School of Art alumni Cleveland School (arts community)