Just in time

Thanks to a blip by SpotsOfTime, I got to an exhibition I thought I had missed.

Percy Kelly: Line of Beauty. A retrospective. 
At Tullie House, Carlisle.

Prompted by the blip, I looked it up and found they had extended its run. So off we went to Carlisle this afternoon.

A talented artist, who lived for a long while in Cumbria and drew and painted scenes around West Cumbria and elsewhere, Percy Kelly had a rather sad life. Withdrawn and suffering from depression, he refused to exhibit in his lifetime and sold very little of his pictures. Twenty-five years after his death, this exhibition brings together an extensive collection of his work and a remarkable collection it is too. Preferring harbours and buildings to pretty Lake District scenes; preferring line to colour, these are very different pictures from what one might expect.

We were both fascinated by the work, Gordon recognising places, like Allonby and Whitehaven, as they were when he was growing up, at the same time as Kelly was recording them.

I’m glad we didn’t miss this. Thanks SpotsOfTime.

Percy Kelly liked rooftops and lamps – here is Carlisle in the late afternoon sun. (We had sleet this morning!)