Cow up a tree, 2005, John Kelly
Laser cut mild steel from an original drawing, 27cm x 32cm x 15cm
Provenance: Australian Galleries, Melbourne.
Born in Bristol, but raised in Australia, John Kelly’s best known work is an eight metre bronze sculpture of a cow, a cow stuck up in a tree, that was erected on the Champs Elysee in Paris in 1999. Cows are the centrepiece of his work and he’s explored them in painting, drawing, sculptor and other forms throughout his career. Kelly’s devotion to his unlikely subject matter has bought acclaim, exhibitions, commissions and representation in public and private galleries around the world.
Kelly began producing his cow creations after reading the unlikely story of William Dobell’s activities during World War II. One of Australia’s most prominent artists at the time, Dobell, was commissioned by the Government to produce papier-mâché cows to place in fields as decoys to distract possible Japanese pilots searching for military bases. Kelly’s cows are painted unlike Dobell - cubic, floating, upside down - an abstraction of the form (1).
Other works by this artist: