Robert George Talbot Kelly (1861–1934) was an English orientalist landscape and genre painter, author and illustrator.
Kelly was born in Birkenhead, Cheshire, the son of Irish landscape and portrait painter, Robert George Kelly. He was educated at Birkenhead School and studied art under his father. He left school in 1876 to take up work in a firm of cotton traders, but was also received an art education from his father, exhibiting under the name R. G. Kelly Jnr.
Robert Talbot Kelly is best known as a painter in oil and watercolour of meticulous and atmospheric Egyptian subjects. He settled in Cairo, and absorbed himself in the landscape and culture, learning Arabic and spending time with the Bedouin. As a result, his studio became a destination for foreign visitors and he was eventually awarded an Order by the Kedive of Egypt. However, he was able to broaden his range, and worked with success as far afield as Iceland and Burma.
Kelly travelled to Burma (now Myanmar), which he wrote about and painted for two books published by A & C Black, Burma Painted and Described (1905) and Burma (1909). The former contains reproductions of 73 of Kelly’s paintings and the latter contains 12 reproductions, all of which also appeared in the first book.
On his trip through Burma and the paintings he left of the country, Kelly had a significant impact on the early 20th century development of Burmese painting. In Burma, he is believed to have met and taught the basics of Western painting to a major painter of Burma, M.T. Hla (U Tun Hla) (1874–1946), and the paintings of Maung Maung Gyi (painter) (1890–1942) and Ba Ohn (c.1877-fl.1924) show clear influence of Kelly’s style in certain works.
Talbot-Kelly worked mainly in watercolour and black and white. He was a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours (RI), Royal Society of British Artists (RBA), Royal British Colonial Society of Artists (RBC) and the Royal Geographical Society (RGS).
He was President of the Liver Sketching Club in Liverpool in 1917 and also a member of the Artists’ Club Liverpool, of which his father, Robert George Kelly, was a founder member.
Kelly was born in Birkenhead, Cheshire, the son of Irish landscape and portrait painter, Robert George Kelly. He was educated at Birkenhead School and studied art under his father. He left school in 1876 to take up work in a firm of cotton traders, but was also received an art education from his father, exhibiting under the name R. G. Kelly Jnr.
Robert Talbot Kelly is best known as a painter in oil and watercolour of meticulous and atmospheric Egyptian subjects. He settled in Cairo, and absorbed himself in the landscape and culture, learning Arabic and spending time with the Bedouin. As a result, his studio became a destination for foreign visitors and he was eventually awarded an Order by the Kedive of Egypt. However, he was able to broaden his range, and worked with success as far afield as Iceland and Burma.
Kelly travelled to Burma (now Myanmar), which he wrote about and painted for two books published by A & C Black, Burma Painted and Described (1905) and Burma (1909). The former contains reproductions of 73 of Kelly’s paintings and the latter contains 12 reproductions, all of which also appeared in the first book.
On his trip through Burma and the paintings he left of the country, Kelly had a significant impact on the early 20th century development of Burmese painting. In Burma, he is believed to have met and taught the basics of Western painting to a major painter of Burma, M.T. Hla (U Tun Hla) (1874–1946), and the paintings of Maung Maung Gyi (painter) (1890–1942) and Ba Ohn (c.1877-fl.1924) show clear influence of Kelly’s style in certain works.
Talbot-Kelly worked mainly in watercolour and black and white. He was a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours (RI), Royal Society of British Artists (RBA), Royal British Colonial Society of Artists (RBC) and the Royal Geographical Society (RGS).
He was President of the Liver Sketching Club in Liverpool in 1917 and also a member of the Artists’ Club Liverpool, of which his father, Robert George Kelly, was a founder member.
Talbot Kelly 27 x 18 – SOLD
Talbot Kelly 55 x 75 – SOLD
Talbot Kelly 36 x 25 - SOLD
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