Provenance :

Portrait's Inc, New York

Rock Cliff is located in the fashionable resort community of Newport, Rhode Island. Constructed in 1887, architect George Mason Jr. designed the house in the Tudor revival style, or 'Stick style', popular in America at that time. Mason later transformed it into a Georgian neo-classical building, a trend admired by socialites of the 1910s and 1920s. Faithfully restored by its present owners, Rock Cliff is one of the grand estates to feature on Newport's famous Cliff Walk.

Born and raised in Auckland, Felix Kelly moved to London in 1939 to begin his career as a graphic designer. He first exhibited paintings in 1940 at The Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight. In London he exhibited with Lucien Freud, Ben Nicholson, Walter Sickert and Frances Hodgkins at Lefevre Gallery. He held his first solo exhibition at Portraits Inc. in New York whilst living in America in the late 1940s. It was at Portraits Inc. that the present painting was exhibited. For the rest of his career Kelly exhibited in London at many Mayfair galleries, including Partridge Fine Art on New Bond Street, where his work was popular both with the English aristocracy and American clients.

Handsome and charming, Kelly was popular socially and lived like a latter-day Augustus Hare, staying at the grand country houses of clients and friends, many of which he embellished or redesigned. The Castle Howard murals (1982) and his 1986 redesign of the frontage of Highgrove House, the country home of HRH The Prince of Wales, are classic examples. Kelly also designed for the stage at theatres such as the Haymarket, Sadler's Wells and the Old Vic.