Bernadette Kelly was born in Le Bousquet d'Orb, Herault in the South of France in 1933. She studied at the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs in Paris from 1953 to 1956 in Marcel Gromaire's studio. She taught drawing in Yves Hersent's preparatory class for seven years, then devoted herself entirely to painting and engraving from 1965.
Kelly's work emerges from the meditative disorder of her Paris studio in a riot of deep blues, earthy ochres and violet reds, evoking the tones of French Old Masters such as Nicolas Poussin. Her influences include Maurice Denis, Paul Serusier and other avant-garde Le Nabis painters, with particular reference to the movement of figures, an indifference to the 'finish' and a consciousness of brushwork.
Further afield, comparisons can be drawn to the abstracted portrait and landscape work of American painter Richard Diebenkorn and the wider Bay Area Figurative Movement. A continuity of atmosphere and subject prevails throughout her collection with an underlying sense of geometry. Kelly exhibited widely across France, Belgium and Germany from 1966 to 2020, including in Paris at the Bibliotheque Nationale, Galerie Le Bateau Lavoir and Galerie Thierry Mercier.
