Jane Kelly
Encyclopedia
Jane Kelly is a journalist and artist, affiliated with the Stuckist
art group. She was dismissed from the Daily Mail
after exhibiting a painting of Myra Hindley.
, and educated at Pendeford High School, Wolverhampton
, and Stirling University, where she graduated in 1978 in history and fine art. 1978–79 she taught in Sosnowiec
University, Poland
, since when she has worked as a journalist, including the Walsall Observer, The Times
, The Daily Telegraph
, Daily Mail
, The Guardian
and Daily Express
. She said:
In 1995, she took an Advanced Diploma in Painting at the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design
, London. In 2000, she exhibited in the Royal Academy
Summer Show. The same year, she was a guest artist of the Stuckist
art group, and in 2003 founded The Acton Stuckists group.
In 2004, she was an exhibitor in The Stuckists Punk Victorian
show at the Walker Art Gallery
during the 2004 Liverpool Biennial
. At the time she was a writer on the Daily Mail
, but was dismissed after a painting by her, If We Could Undo Psychosis 2 featuring Myra Hindley, was exhibited in the show. The painting shows a family group of mother and two children with child-killer Myra Hindley substituted for the father and holding a teddy bear. The incident was reported on the front page of The Guardian
newspaper, which commented:
It described how the paper welcomed a previous work exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Show by Kelly showing London Mayor Ken Livingstone
in the context of the 1944 Stauffenberg plot against Hitler
. The Daily Mails managing editor, Lawrence Sear, who dismissed Kelly, described as "absolute rubbish" the claim that the loss of her job was related to her artwork.
She has said that she was never given a full reason for her dismissal, but that she had previously also got into trouble by trying to introduce the term "German expressionism" into some copy about the performing dwarves used in the MGM film, The Wizard of Oz
, some of whom came from Weimar Germany. She said that the acting feature editor at the time had never heard of such a thing and told her "what the fuck is German Expressionism? I have never heard of it and neither have our fucking readers."
Her own explanation of her painting in the show catalogue was:
The painting sold to a European Union
Commissioner for £3,500.
In December 2006, her show, Stupid English Men, was held in a Brighton
gallery, Art Café. Her painting of Tim Walker, The Sunday Telegraphs theatre critic and diarist, was stolen from the gallery.
In August 2007, she appeared in the documentary, The Daily Mail Diet, on Al Gore
's Current TV
internet video site, where she showed a painting of Daily Mail editor, Paul Dacre
behind a prawn cocktail
, which Kelly said represented "a little bit of taste, but very predictable, bland and no surprises—it's from a different age where people had a more limited palate", and that she had depicted him as a stern figure as he "loves the 50s he wants people to go back to a time of discipline". She explains the other figure in the painting: "The Mail has always been slightly prurient and a bit scared of sex and I wanted this figure to represent that—it's slightly nasty and a bit threatening." The documentary, on the same principle as the film Supersize Me, showed film maker Nick Angel consuming only one news product—the Daily Mail—for four weeks, a diet, which Kelly considered, "dangerous—it would be like eating hamburgers and nothing else—you're starving yourself." The Guardian challenged Daily Mail journalists to print out her picture and post it on the newsroom wall.
Kelly's work is mainly preoccupied with The Holocaust
and she sees herself as a "post-holocaust painter". She has visited Zandvoort
beach, 15 minutes from Amsterdam
, where Anne Frank
used to go regularly as a child, accompanied by her family. Kelly made a painting based on this visit which was auctioned by Sotheby's
in Belfast
on 28 April 2006, in aid of victims of trauma. The painting was sold for £1,500 to an Irish collector. Kelly said, "It was rather a lonely job going out to Zandvoort to make the drawings for the painting and sometimes I doubted my sanity in doing it at all."
Her work has been shown at the Cristus Gallery, Sandgate, The Royal Academy Summer Show, The Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, The White Cube, London, the Sackville Gallery, London, the Excel Centre, Manchester, the MacRobert Arts Centre, Stirling and the Wolverhampton City Art Gallery.
In May 2010, Jane Kelly was diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer. She has kept a blog on this new adventure and all her dealings with the NHS.
It can be found on Google Bloggers entitled: icantbelieveitsreallycancer.blog
Stuckism
Stuckism is an international art movement founded in 1999 by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting in opposition to conceptual art...
art group. She was dismissed from the Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
after exhibiting a painting of Myra Hindley.
Life and work
Jane Kelly was born in Charlton, LondonCharlton, London
Charlton is a district of south London, England, and part of the London Borough of Greenwich. It is located east-southeast of Charing Cross. Charlton next Woolwich was an ancient parish in the county of Kent, which became part of the metropolitan area of London in 1855. It is home to Charlton...
, and educated at Pendeford High School, Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands, England. For Eurostat purposes Walsall and Wolverhampton is a NUTS 3 region and is one of five boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "West Midlands" NUTS 2 region...
, and Stirling University, where she graduated in 1978 in history and fine art. 1978–79 she taught in Sosnowiec
Sosnowiec
Sosnowiec is a city in Zagłębie Dąbrowskie in southern Poland, near Katowice. It is one of the central districts of the Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union - a metropolis with a combined population of over two million people located in the Silesian Highlands, on the Brynica river .It is situated in...
University, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, since when she has worked as a journalist, including the Walsall Observer, The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
, Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
, The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
and Daily Express
Daily Express
The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...
. She said:
- In the 1970s it was Lynda Lee-PotterLynda Lee-PotterLynda Lee-Potter OBE was a columnist for the British newspaper the Daily Mail.-Early years:...
against Jean RookJean RookJean Kathleen Rook was an English journalist dubbed The First Lady of Fleet Street for her regular opinion column in the Daily Express...
on the Daily ExpressDaily ExpressThe Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...
, and we younger women writers all thought we would inherit that. But it's faded out. There's been a change in editorial approach. Perhaps lippy women aren't as much of a draw as they were.
In 1995, she took an Advanced Diploma in Painting at the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design
Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design
Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London. The school has an outstanding international reputation, and is considered one of the world's leading art and design institutions...
, London. In 2000, she exhibited in the Royal Academy
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
Summer Show. The same year, she was a guest artist of the Stuckist
Stuckism
Stuckism is an international art movement founded in 1999 by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting in opposition to conceptual art...
art group, and in 2003 founded The Acton Stuckists group.
The Stuckists Punk Victorian
The Stuckists Punk Victorian was the first national gallery exhibition of Stuckist art. It was held at the Walker Art Gallery and Lady Lever Art Gallery in Liverpool from 18 September 2004 to 20 February 2005, and was part of the 2004 Liverpool Biennial....
show at the Walker Art Gallery
Walker Art Gallery
The Walker Art Gallery is an art gallery in Liverpool, which houses one of the largest art collections in England, outside of London. It is part of the National Museums Liverpool group, and is promoted as "the National Gallery of the North" because it is not a local or regional gallery but is part...
during the 2004 Liverpool Biennial
Liverpool Biennial
Liverpool Biennial is a British international festival of contemporary art held in Liverpool. The festival comprises the International Exhibition, the John Moores Painting Prize, the Bloomberg New Contemporaries Exhibition and the Independents Biennial....
. At the time she was a writer on the Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
, but was dismissed after a painting by her, If We Could Undo Psychosis 2 featuring Myra Hindley, was exhibited in the show. The painting shows a family group of mother and two children with child-killer Myra Hindley substituted for the father and holding a teddy bear. The incident was reported on the front page of The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
newspaper, which commented:
- Stuckism, the art movement founded by Tracey EminTracey EminTracey Karima Emin RA is a British artist of English and Turkish Cypriot origin. She is part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs ....
's former boyfriend to oppose the pretensions of BritartYoung British ArtistsYoung British Artists or YBAs is the name given to a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London, in 1988...
, claims to advocate 'honest, uncensored expression'. Unfortunately, the Daily MailDaily MailThe Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
does not appear to share those values.
It described how the paper welcomed a previous work exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Show by Kelly showing London Mayor Ken Livingstone
Ken Livingstone
Kenneth Robert "Ken" Livingstone is an English politician who is currently a member of the centrist to centre-left Labour Party...
in the context of the 1944 Stauffenberg plot against Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
. The Daily Mails managing editor, Lawrence Sear, who dismissed Kelly, described as "absolute rubbish" the claim that the loss of her job was related to her artwork.
She has said that she was never given a full reason for her dismissal, but that she had previously also got into trouble by trying to introduce the term "German expressionism" into some copy about the performing dwarves used in the MGM film, The Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)
The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed primarily by Victor Fleming. Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, but there were uncredited contributions by others. The lyrics for the songs...
, some of whom came from Weimar Germany. She said that the acting feature editor at the time had never heard of such a thing and told her "what the fuck is German Expressionism? I have never heard of it and neither have our fucking readers."
Her own explanation of her painting in the show catalogue was:
- I've always been fascinated by Myra Hindley's disastrous life and because hers was the first horrible crime I knew about as a child. I wanted to see what she might have looked like in the kind of family situation she was always denied.
The painting sold to a European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
Commissioner for £3,500.
In December 2006, her show, Stupid English Men, was held in a Brighton
Brighton
Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...
gallery, Art Café. Her painting of Tim Walker, The Sunday Telegraphs theatre critic and diarist, was stolen from the gallery.
Al Gore
Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....
's Current TV
Current TV
Current TV, or Current, is a media company led by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and businessman Joel Hyatt. Comcast owns a ten percent stake of Current's parent company, Current Media LLC....
internet video site, where she showed a painting of Daily Mail editor, Paul Dacre
Paul Dacre
Paul Michael Dacre is a British journalist and current editor of the British newspaper the Daily Mail. He is also editor in chief of the Mail group titles, which also includes The Mail on Sunday. He is also a director of the Daily Mail and General Trust plc and was a member of the Press Complaints...
behind a prawn cocktail
Prawn cocktail
Prawn cocktail is a seafood dish consisting of "shelled prawns in mayonnaise and tomato dressing, served in a glass". It was the most popular hors d'œuvre in Great Britain in the 1970s.-External links:*...
, which Kelly said represented "a little bit of taste, but very predictable, bland and no surprises—it's from a different age where people had a more limited palate", and that she had depicted him as a stern figure as he "loves the 50s he wants people to go back to a time of discipline". She explains the other figure in the painting: "The Mail has always been slightly prurient and a bit scared of sex and I wanted this figure to represent that—it's slightly nasty and a bit threatening." The documentary, on the same principle as the film Supersize Me, showed film maker Nick Angel consuming only one news product—the Daily Mail—for four weeks, a diet, which Kelly considered, "dangerous—it would be like eating hamburgers and nothing else—you're starving yourself." The Guardian challenged Daily Mail journalists to print out her picture and post it on the newsroom wall.
Kelly's work is mainly preoccupied with The Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
and she sees herself as a "post-holocaust painter". She has visited Zandvoort
Zandvoort
Zandvoort is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland.Zandvoort is one of the major beach resorts of the Netherlands; it has a long sandy beach, bordered by coastal dunes...
beach, 15 minutes from Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
, where Anne Frank
Anne Frank
Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank is one of the most renowned and most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Acknowledged for the quality of her writing, her diary has become one of the world's most widely read books, and has been the basis for several plays and films.Born in the city of Frankfurt...
used to go regularly as a child, accompanied by her family. Kelly made a painting based on this visit which was auctioned by Sotheby's
Sotheby's
Sotheby's is the world's fourth oldest auction house in continuous operation.-History:The oldest auction house in operation is the Stockholms Auktionsverk founded in 1674, the second oldest is Göteborgs Auktionsverk founded in 1681 and third oldest being founded in 1731, all Swedish...
in Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
on 28 April 2006, in aid of victims of trauma. The painting was sold for £1,500 to an Irish collector. Kelly said, "It was rather a lonely job going out to Zandvoort to make the drawings for the painting and sometimes I doubted my sanity in doing it at all."
Her work has been shown at the Cristus Gallery, Sandgate, The Royal Academy Summer Show, The Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, The White Cube, London, the Sackville Gallery, London, the Excel Centre, Manchester, the MacRobert Arts Centre, Stirling and the Wolverhampton City Art Gallery.
In May 2010, Jane Kelly was diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer. She has kept a blog on this new adventure and all her dealings with the NHS.
It can be found on Google Bloggers entitled: icantbelieveitsreallycancer.blog