Elizabeth Kelly

Name
Elizabeth Kelly
Date of birth
12 Apr 1877
Place of birth
Christchurch/Canterbury (region)/New Zealand
Date of death
04 Oct 1946
Place of death
Christchurch/Canterbury (region)/New Zealand
Gender
Female
Biography
Born in Ōtautahi Christchurch, Elizabeth Kelly (née Abbott) attended the Canterbury College School of Art from 1891–1901 and showed early promise in portraiture. She won regular prizes for her modelling from life, including at the 1906–07 Christchurch International Exhibition. Kelly later became one of New Zealand’s leading society portrait painters, showing her work in exhibitions in London, Edinburgh and Paris and was credited for revitalising formal portraiture in the 1920s and 1930s. Despite her achievements, Kelly’s naturalistic style fell out of favour with the emergence of modernism, and her work became representative of a conservative mode of painting which contrasted the approaches of a younger generation, including Colin McCahon and Toss Woollaston. Sensitive to the character of her sitter, Kelly’s portraits nevertheless capture the spirit of her age amongst a well-heeled, privileged sector of society. In 1938 she became the first woman artist to achieve official recognition with the award of a C.B.E for services to the arts.