Ray Kelly
Arriving in New York City from his family farm in Texas in 1964 to study painting at the Art Students League, Cowboy Ray Kelly lived an art-filled and adventurous life ever since, including ending the tumultuous decade of the 1960's as Mark Rothko's painting assistant for three years while the Rothko Chapel in Houston was being built. He apprenticed with Herbert Ferber, taught fresco, briefly, at Skowhegan School and founded the Rivington School on New York's Lower East Side in the 80's. He's shown work worldwide including P.S.1, Socrates Sculpture park, and the Cooper Hewitt Museum. He was Robert Motherwell's hired bartender of choice for the extravagant parties he and wife Helen Frankenthaler hosted at their upper East Side townhouse. Over the years he threw back drinks with everyone from Elaine de Kooning to Ad Reinhardt, married and divorced pioneering performance/video/film artist Arleen Schloss and still hits the town hard with Anja Kostler, his much younger and gorgeous German born photographer girlfriend. In 1970 he purchased an abandoned building on Broome street, across from WhiteBox gallery, for the price of one year's rent on a two bedroom apartment in today's market. As the curator of his exhibition, I got a chance to have a discussion with Cowboy Ray Kelly in his basement workshop/studio before his May 1st 2012 opening at Orchard Windows Gallery.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2012 Black Box Exchanges, White Box, New York City
2012 Orchard Windows Gallery, New York City
2009 White Box, New York City
1988 Hanku Five, Osaka, Japan
1988 Nagoya University of the Arts, Nagoya, Japan
1986 ARS Electronica, Linz, Austria
1979 Gateway National Recreation Area, Jacob Riis Park, New York City
1978 and 1977 Robert Freidus Gallery, New York City
1976 Janie C. Lee Gallery, Houston, Texas
1975 Castle Clinton, Battery Park, New York City
1974 Dord Fitz Gallery, Amarillo, Texas
1974 Guild Hall, East Hampton, New York
1968 Clyde Mack Gallery, New York City
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
Cooper Hewitt Museum, Newark Museum, Tyler Museum, National Park Service, Lille Ford Company (Perryton, Texas), Stanley Marsh 3rd (Amarillo, Texas), Janie C. Lee (Houston Texas), Dennis Oppenheimer