{{Short description|British army officer and painter (1896–1971)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=March 2020}} {{EngvarB|date=March 2020}} {{infobox person/Wikidata |fetchwikidata=ALL |dateformat = dmy | honorific_suffix = MBE, MC, RI }} '''Richard Barrett Talbot Kelly''' MBE, MC, RI, (20 August 1896 – 30 March 1971), known to friends and colleagues as 'TK', was a British army officer, school teacher, and artist, known especially for his watercolour paintings of ornithological subjects.

==Early life == Talbot Kelly was born in Birkenhead, then part of Cheshire, England, on 20 August 1896.<ref name="NAM">{{cite web |title=Lieutenant Richard Talbot Kelly |url=http://ww1.nam.ac.uk/stories/lieutenant-richard-talbot-kelly/ |website=National Army Museum, London |accessdate=6 May 2019}}</ref> He was the only son of Lilias Fisher Kelly and Robert Talbot Kelly.<ref name="NAM" /> His father was also a successful artist,<ref name="NAM" /> as was his paternal grandfather, the Irish landscape and portrait painter, Robert George Kelly. The family lived in Rochdale, which was then in Lancashire,<ref name="NAM" /> but moved to London when Talbot Kelly was six.<ref name="LissL">{{cite web |title=Twentieth Century British Art by Lt Richard Barrett Talbot Kelly |url=https://www.lissllewellyn.com/llfa__A_259__.htm |website=lissllewellyn.com |accessdate=6 May 2019 }}</ref> He was educated at The Hall School, Hampstead, followed by a boarding school in Rottingdean, then Rugby School and finally the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich.<ref name="NAM" />

== Military career ==

Talbot Kelly was commissioned as a second lieutenant with the Royal Horse Artillery on 22 April 1915.<ref name="NAM" /><ref name="LG-29137">{{London Gazette |issue=29137 |supp=y |page=3923 |date=20 April 1915 }}</ref> He served as a Forward Observation Officer with the 9th (Scottish) Division, 52nd Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, in France, from May 1915 until January 1917.<ref name="NAM" /><ref name="IWM">{{cite web |title=A subaltern's odyssey memoirs of the Great War 1915–1917 |url=https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1500035038 |publisher=Imperial War Museums |accessdate=6 May 2019 }}</ref> He saw combat in the Battle of Loos (1915), the Battle of the Somme (1916) and the Battle of Arras (1917).<ref name="NAM" />

He subsequently served in an Army Field Artillery Brigade, and was awarded the Military Cross in June 1917.<ref name="LG-30111">{{London Gazette |issue=30111 |supp=y |page=5480 |date=1 June 1917}}</ref> He was wounded by the blast from a shell at the Battle of Passchendaele on 5 August 1917.<ref name="NAM" /><ref name="IWM" /> After convalescing at home, he returned to France in April 1918, then taught camouflage at the School of Artillery in Larkhill.<ref name="NAM" /> He successfully requested a transfer to the Royal Flying Corps, but before he could undertake pilot training, the war came to an end.<ref name="NAM" />

After the war, he remained with the military, serving in the Royal Artillery in India.<ref name="NAM" /> Having married Dorothy Bundy (daughter of the Pre-Raphaelite painter Edgar Bundy<ref name="TKA">{{cite web |title=Richard Barrett Talbot Kelly |url=https://talbotkelly.com/richard-barrett-talbot-kelly/ |website=The Talbot Kelly Ancestors |accessdate=6 May 2019}}</ref>) in 1924, he was discharged from the army in 1929.<ref name="NAM" />

In 1939, on the outbreak of World War II, he received his army recall (service number 14791<ref name="LG-36309">{{London Gazette |issue=36309 |supp=y |page=14 |date=31 December 1943}}</ref>), and was Chief Instructor at the War Office Camouflage Development and Training Centre in Farnham for the duration of the war.<ref name="NAM" /> He was made a Brevet Major on 3 August 1942,<ref name="LG-35746">{{London Gazette |issue=35746 |supp=y |page=4482 |date= 13 October 1942 }}</ref> a rank he retained until discharge.<ref name="LG-37990">{{London Gazette |issue=37990 |supp=y |page=2772 |date=17 June 1947 }}</ref> For his work at Farnham he was appointed, in the 1944 New Year Honours, a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE).<ref name="NAM" /><ref name="LG-36309" /> At that time he was also credited with the rank of Temporary Major.<ref name="LG-36309" />

His memoir, ''A Subaltern's Odyssey: Memoirs of the Great War, 1915–1917'', was published posthumously in 1980.

== Civilian career == After the First World War, Talbot Kelly began to exhibit his bird paintings. In 1925, he was elected to the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours.<ref name="NAM" />

Upon leaving the army in 1929, Talbot Kelly was appointed Director of Art at his {{lang|la|alma mater}}, Rugby School and, during the 1930s began to publish books of his paintings.<ref name="NAM" />

He exhibited at the Royal Academy, the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours and the Paris Salon.<ref name="RountreeTryon">{{cite web |title=Richard Barrett Talbot Kelly biography |url=https://www.rountreetryon.com/artists/182-richard-barrett-talbot-kelly/biography/ |website=Rountree Tryon |accessdate=6 May 2019 }}</ref>

He painted posters for British Rail, London Underground, and London Transport.<ref name="LTM">{{cite web |title=Richard Barrett Talbot Kelly, 1896–1971 |url=https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/collections/collections-online/people/item/1996-4933 |publisher=London Transport Museum |accessdate=6 May 2019}}</ref>

He was engaged as the design consultant for the Pavilion of Natural Science at the 1951 Festival of Britain.<ref name="LTM" />

He was a founder-member, in 1964, of the Society of Wildlife Artists.<ref name="LTM" />

While at Rugby, he also worked in museums, curating the natural history collections of Warwick Museum and the National History Museum of Uganda.<ref name="NAM" /> He retired from teaching in 1966.<ref name="NAM" />

In retirement, he worked as a volunteer curator in his new home town of Leicester, and as a book illustrator.<ref name="NAM" />

== Death and legacy == Talbot Kelly died at his home in Leicester on 30 March 1971, at the age of seventy-four.<ref name="TKA" />

A number of his watercolours from the Western Front are in the collection of the United Kingdom's National Army Museum.<ref name="NAM" /> His painting "Young Lapwing" is in the Ulster Museum.<ref name="ArtUK">{{cite web |title=Young Lapwing |url=https://www.artuk.org/discover/artworks/young-lapwing-122273 |publisher=Art UK |accessdate=6 May 2019 }}</ref> A copy of his 1927 poster for the Underground Electric Railways Company of London, "Zoo: Common and Spiny Lobster", is in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.<ref name="AIC">{{cite web |title=Zoo: Common and Spiny Lobster |url=https://www.artic.edu/artworks/61213/zoo-common-and-spiny-lobster |publisher=The Art Institute of Chicago |accessdate=6 May 2019 }}</ref> A copy of his poster for British Railways, "Norfolk – Heron & Bearded Tits", and one of his 1960 London Transport poster "When did you last see your Ravens?" are in the Science Museum, London.<ref name="SCM1">{{cite web |title=Norfolk |url=https://collection.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects/co229012/norfolk-poster |publisher=Science Museum, London|accessdate=6 May 2019}}</ref><ref name="SML2">{{cite web |title=London Transport poster |url=https://collection.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects/co228291/london-transport-poster-poster |publisher=Science Museum, London |accessdate=6 May 2019}}</ref>

His daughter is the ornithological artist Chloe Elizabeth Talbot Kelly,<ref name="LTM" /> like her father a founder member of the Society of Wildlife Artists.<ref name="LCB">{{cite web |title=CE Talbot Kelly |url=http://www.lcbdepot.co.uk/event/ce-talbot-kelly |publisher=Leicester City Council |accessdate=6 May 2019}}</ref> His son Richard Giles Talbot Kelly (1929–2006<ref name="GDC">{{cite web |title=GDC (Graphic Designers of Canada) {{!}} Giles Talbot Kelly, FGDC |url=https://gdc.design/fellows/giles-talbot-kelly-fgdc |website=gdc.design |accessdate=6 May 2019}}</ref>) was also an artist.<ref name="NAM" />

Previewing a 2015 World Land Trust Art Gallery exhibition which included his work, Nikki Hawes wrote of Talbot Kelly:<ref name="Hawes">{{cite web |last1=Hawes |first1=Nikki |title=Gallery Exhibits Wildlife Art from R B Talbot Kelly |url=https://www.discoveranimals.co.uk/news/gallery-exhibits-wildlife-art-from-r-b-talbot-kelly/ |website=Discover Animals |accessdate=6 May 2019 |date=5 November 2015}}</ref>

{{Quote|Familiarity with his subjects, which included both insight and understanding, was the key to Talbot Kelly's work. His ability to exclude what he knew to be the facts and concentrate on what he had seen puts his work into the highest category of bird painting.}}

==Publications== * {{cite book |last1=Talbot Kelly |first1=Richard |author-mask=0 |title=The Way of Birds |publisher= Collins |year=1937}} * {{cite book |last1=Talbot Kelly |first1=Richard |author-mask=0 |title=Paper Birds |publisher=Puffin |year=1947}} * {{cite book |last1=Talbot Kelly |first1=Richard |author-mask=0 |title=Mountain And Moorland Birds (Puffin Picture Books, Number 65) |publisher=Puffin |year=1947}} * {{cite book |last1=Talbot Kelly |first1=Richard |author-mask=0 |title=Bird Life and the Painter |publisher=Studio Publications |year=1955}} * {{cite book |last1=Talbot Kelly |first1=Richard |author-mask=0 |title=A Subaltern's Odyssey. A memoir of the Great War 1915–1917 |publisher=Kimber |year=1980}}

===Illustrated by Talbot Kelly=== * {{cite book |last1=Lockley |first1=R. M. |authorlink=Ronald Lockley |title=Birds of the Sea: King Penguin No. 24 |publisher=Penguin |year=1945}} * {{cite book |last1=Clive |first1=Simson |title=A Bird Overhead |publisher= H.F. & G. Witherby Ltd |year=1966}}

==References== {{Reflist}}

==External links== *[http://www.artnet.com/artists/richard-barret-talbot-kelly/ Examples of Talbot Kelly's work] at Artnet *[https://www.mutualart.com/Artist/Richard-Barrett-Talbot-Kelly/E22A680B426C74C2/Artworks Examples of Talbot Kelly's work] at MutualArt.com *[https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/collections/collections-online/posters?q=talbot+kelly London Transport Museum: Posters by Talbot Kelly]

{{Authority control}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Talbot Kelly, Richard Barrett}} Category:1896 births Category:1971 deaths Category:Royal Field Artillery officers Category:Members of the Order of the British Empire Category:People from Rochdale Category:People educated at The Hall School, Hampstead Category:People educated at Rugby School Category:Graduates of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich Category:Royal Horse Artillery officers Category:Royal Flying Corps officers Category:British Army personnel of World War I Category:British Army personnel of World War II Category:Military personnel from Leicester Category:Artists from Leicester Category:Recipients of the Military Cross Category:Military personnel from Birkenhead Category:Military personnel from London