Leon Kelly

Leon Kelly (1901-1982) belongs to that unique strain of American Surrealism that produced Arshile Gorky, Pavel Tchelitchew and Joseph Cornell. Wildlife and biomorphic forms fill his brightly-hued canvases, increasingly (from the 50s onwards) rendered with an almost Bellmer-esque exactitude. Like many before him, Kelly made the pilgrimage to Paris in 1925, where he befriended the great art critic Félix Fénéon and members of the Surrealist circle; upon his return to the U.S. he benefited from the presence of the expat Surrealists around Julien Levy, who was an important early advocate of his work. But Kelly was reclusive ("I believe I have a strong shot of the chemical that makes hermits and monks," he confessed), and later receded from public view. Now retrieved by the Surrealist and Dada scholars Martica Sawin and Francis Naumann, Leon Kelly is well served by this first major monograph, which includes excellent reproductions of both paintings and drawings.