Francis Kelly, Women Waiting at Nazare, Oil on canvas, 75 x 95 cm.
 
Francis Kelly is highly well renowned artist, printmaker, art restorer and author,  with works in many major institutions around the world, such as the Tate Britain, London and the Ashmolean, in Oxford. Born in 1927 in St. Paul, Minnesota, he moved to France in 1951, and lived in Paris, attending the Academie de la Grande, Chaumiere.
 
Awarded a Fulbright Grant in 1955 he came to the Graphic Department of the Central School, London. The St. George's Gallery first introduced his etchings in Britain. In 1958 Kelly was awarded the Stacy Grant for painting. His work has been shown at Royal Academy Exhibitions and he has traveled extensively.
 
In 1966 he was appointed Art organizer for the U.S. Embassy "Festival of Arts in Humanities". His paintings were shown in the exhibition "Five American Artists in Britain". During 1976 he acted in a similar capacity on behalf of Windsor & Newton Ltd., who sponsored an exhibition of American artists commemorating the U.S. Bicentennial. He appeared in the film "Science in Art".
 
Kelly has studied painting conservation at the Courtald Institute. In 1967 he was sent to the Italian Art and Archives Rescue Fund to Florence to restore flood damage paintings. In 1971 his book, Art Restoration, was published by David and Charles and in the U.S. by McGraw-Hill. His second book, The Studio and the Artist was published in 1975.