Felix Runcie Kelly was a New Zealand-born graphic designer, painter, stage designer, interior designer and illustrator who lived the majority of his life in the United Kingdom.
18 Facts About Felix Kelly
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Felix Kelly sometimes signed his illustration and cartoon work Fix.
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Felix Kelly trained as a graphic artist and designer and sold the occasional cartoon.
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Felix Kelly's father went bankrupt in 1933 and his mother left him to live in England.
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Felix Kelly left New Zealand in 1935 and joined his mother in London.
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In London Felix Kelly was employed as a graphic designer at Lintas, the advertising wing of Unilever.
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In 1943 he suffered a severe illness that ended his active service and resulted in Felix Kelly focusing on his painting.
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In 1944 a larger exhibition of Felix Kelly's works opened at the same gallery with works by Lucian Freud and Julian Trevelyan in adjoining rooms.
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Felix Kelly accepted numerous commissions for paintings, murals and for illustration work.
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Felix Kelly's commissions led him to visit and stay at many of the grandest country houses in the United Kingdom.
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Felix Kelly fulfilled commissions in the UK, United States, Russia, North Africa, the Far East, and the Caribbean.
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Felix Kelly completed a mural for the banqueting hall of the Royal Palace, Kathmundu, Nepal, murals in a number of Union Castle and Cunard liners, but probably his most well known commission was the four murals painted in the Garden Hall at Castle Howard in 1982.
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Felix Kelly designed the Felix Kelly car at Castle Howard, a little fairground-style train for conveying visitors round the grounds.
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Felix Kelly produced an artist's impression of a Palladian temple for Sebastian de Ferranti, who then worked with various architects to realise the design.
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Felix Kelly remodelled the house of Sir Michael Blake at Cornhill-on-Tweed and designed it as a Gothic dowerhouse.
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Felix Kelly produced set designs for a number of theatre productions including:.
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Felix Kelly illustrated a number of books including a very successful collaboration his friend Elizabeth Burton whose four-volume series on the domestic interiors and furnishings of Elizabethans, Jacobeans, Georgians and early Victorians ideally fit Felix Kelly's aesthetic.
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Felix Kelly was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 1992 and died in Devon in 1994.