Sydney painter Michael Kelly feared the record of his life as an artist – dozens of sketchbooks – would end up in a skip bin, or destroyed by mould or silverfish.
Kelly has seen for himself what happened when neighbours were out of luck and money. “Everything gets thrown out in the dumpster.” Fluffed up on pillows by gloved staff, the sketchbooks have been readied to go on show in the Library’s Amaze gallery from Saturday 16 March.Kelly said he had been “high” with relief since the library acquired two paintings, and took his sketchbooks, which he donated.When de Hauteclocque first visited Kelly’s flat last year, she leafed through the sketchbooks with her “acquisition librarian hat on”.
When Kelly returned to Sydney in the early 2000s because his adult son was ill, he found it hard to get re-established. “Gallery owners would die, studios would close, and I began a life of flux,” he said. “As my life went up, went down, I sold a picture, or I didn’t.”Whether he had secure housing or not, flush or broke, he kept drawing and studying.
Describing himself as a serious painter who was equally serious about art history, his sketches range from studies of the great masters such as Rembrandt in galleries overseas to gritty streetscapes.They include the homeless queuing for food on the streets near where he lives, drawings of an unusual dog called Tascha, which drank tea out of a cup for breakfast each morning, and his mum and her cat in regional NSW.
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Source: 7NewsSydney - 🏆 16. / 63 Read more »