Kelly was born in Fordyce, Arkansas in 1918.
Fearing studied art at Louisiana Tech and at Columbia University, where he earned the Master of Arts Degree. In the mid-1940s, along with five other members of “The Fort Worth Circle,” Kelly helped introduce modern art to the artist, collectors, patrons, dealers and critics in Texas. After teaching at Texas Wesleyan College from 1945-47.
Subsequently, he had a distinguished, forty–year career as the Ashbel Smith Professor of Art at the University of Texas at Austin in 1947, where he taught until he retired in 1987 as Professor Emeritus.
Fearing's work was ahead of its time in the 1940s, and it remains so today.
He has been termed a “Romantic surrealist” and a “magical realist” or any number of other labels.
Kelly still lives and works in Austin.
The Fort Worth Circle
The Fort Worth Circle was critical in the development of the city’s growing arts community. By 1939 the Fort Worth Art Association, (now the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth) had moved from the Carnegie Public Library to the new Fort Worth Public Library. There the Association began annual juried local art shows with purchase prizes that were often awarded to members of the Fort Worth Circle. Although the members differed stylistically, the artist shared a love of sketching outdoors and of Fort Worth’s landscape and architecture.
These Texas modernist began to create meaning within the artwork itself. Different artist interpreted the techniques of modernism in varying ways, but the majority moved –to some extent-towards the use of abstraction and non-objectivity.
The Fort Worth Circle clearly made a local and national impression during the 1940s and 1950s. These artists can be said to have an international outlook, in part because many of them expanded their art studies outside of Fort Worth.
The Circle had an amazing connection with New York critics and curators. As a result, several members of the Circle were highly successful in New York shows.
ACOMPLISHMENTS:
Co-author of five books on art history,
appreciation, and creation now in use as text books in school systems.
Became a “Sanyasian,” in meditation
Who’s Who in America, 60th Diamond Edition
Art Educator for more than 60 years
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