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Frank McKelvey RHA RUA (1895-1974)
Coastal Scene with Cattle and Woman Resting
Oil on canvas 51 x 66cm (20 x 26”)
Signed
€5,000 - 7,000
Frank McKelvey studied painting and drawing at the Belfast School of Art in his
hometown, winning the Charles Brett prize for figure drawing in 1912.
Four years later he exhibited at the RHA for the first time and continued to do so an-
nually for the following fifty years, being elected a full member of the academy in 1930.
Also in 1930, along with Hans Iten, Charles Lamb and others, he was elected one of the
founding academicians of the Ulster Academy of Arts.
Between 1923 and 1935 McKelvey exhibited regularly at the Glasgow Institute of Fine
Art and his first solo show was held at Locksley Hall, Belfast, in 1936. The following
year a second solo show was held at the Victor Waddington Galleries. During the 1920s
McKelvey received many portrait commissions and his work was included in major
exhibitions at the Belfast Museum and Art Gallery in 1927, 1931 and 1951.
McKelvey’s work can be found in the collections of Queen’s University Belfast, the
Royal Ulster Academy, the Masonic Hall in Dublin, Crawford Gallery in Cork, and the
Royal Palace of Soestdijk in the Netherlands.