William Kelly (artist)

William Joseph Kelly OAM (1943-2023) was an American artist, humanist and human-rights advocate who lived and worked in Australia and the United States.

Education

William Kelly was born in Buffalo, New York in 1943, and received his artistic training at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and the National Gallery School in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), his country of part-time residence since 1968.^[1] He was also a Fulbright Fellow for which he studied at Prahran College of Advanced Education.

Artist and writer

In addition to creating traditional prints, drawings and paintings, Kelly organised and participated in collaborations in public art and theatre and contributed to art scholarship. In 1983, he was a member of the original steering committee for the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art,^[2] while contributing the introduction and organising the illustrations for the encyclopaedic 1984 survey Heritage of Australian art.^[3]

Kelly promoted his humanist ideals in his art,^[4] for example; in response to a 1987 mass murder in Melbourne, Kelly spent five years on works for an installation titled The Peace Project, first exhibited in 1993 in both Melbourne and Boston, Massachusetts. It was the first visual art project to receive the Australian Violence Prevention Award. His work was exhibited in over 20 countries with an installation in Guernica, Spain and traveling group exhibitions throughout Europe and South Africa (representing Australia in the Dialogue Among Civilizations International Print Portfolio organised to coincide with the cultural activities of the 2010 FIFA World Cup).

Kelly edited an anthology, Violence to Nonviolence: Individual Perspectives, Communal Voices, poems, essays and short stories by Australian and international contributors renouncing violence, and which was published in 1994 and reprinted.^[5] His artwork has also appeared in other books, such as Cultures of Crime and Violence: The Australian Experience^[6] and in Cook and Bessant's Women's Encounters with Violence.^[7] Kelly's artworks are reproduced in publications worldwide and are represented in over 40 public and corporate collections.

In 2000 Kelly founded the Archive of Humanist Art, with prints and drawings of artists from all over the world that address humanist concerns. The projects have been linked to the Basque Country, Spain; Robben Island, site of the prison that once held Nelson Mandela; the Republic of Georgia and Northern Ireland. Mark Street in 2020 released Can Art Stop a Bullet?, a feature documentary on Kelly's life, work in the peace movement, and travels.^[8]

Kelly had studios in Melbourne, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and Nathalia (his last home) where he and his partner Veronica Kelly initiated the G.R.A.I.N. Store in Nathalia, Australia, a community gallery, workshop and performing space.

Educator

Kelly was Dean (1975–1982) of the Victorian College of the Arts^[9] following Lenton Parr. He has delivered guest lectures at Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The New York Studio School and in Europe, South Africa, North America, Eastern Europe, Australasia.

Legacy

For his role as an international artist, humanist, human rights advocate, and founder of the Archive of Humanist Art , Kelly received the Courage of Conscience Award from The Peace Abbey in Sherborn, Massachusetts.^[10]

He was recipient of the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) (for Services to Visual Arts and Urban Design).^[11] He was Founding and Honorary Life Member of the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Founding Member of the Urban Design Forum, and former member of the Board of the Australian Print Workshop.