Sir Gerald Festus Kelly, K.C.V.O., P.R.A., R.H.A. (1879-1972)
Lot 173

Sir Gerald Festus Kelly, K.C.V.O., P.R.A., R.H.A. (1879-1972)

Burmese dancing girl

Closed4 June 2014

Price Realised

GBP 3,750

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How to sell

Sir Gerald Festus Kelly, K.C.V.O., P.R.A., R.H.A. (1879-1972)
Burmese dancing girl
oil on paper laid down on board
19¼ x 15¼ in. (49 x 38.8 cm.)

The contents of the Studio of the late Sir Gerald Kelly, K.C.V.O., P.R.A., R.H.A.; Christie's, London, 8 February 1980, lot 127.

Specialist note

Somerset Maugham wrote of Kelly’s paintings:
‘His Burmese dancers… have a strange impenetrability, their gestures are enigmatic and yet significant, they are charming and yet there is something curiously hieratic in their manner; with a sure instinct and with a more definite feeling for decoration than is possible in a portrait. Mr Kelly has given us the character of the East as we of our generation see it’ (W.S. Maugham, A Student of Character, 1914, pp. 30-31, 36.)