The other transvestite artist: new exhibition puts Percy Kelly in the spotlight

The opening statements of a press release promoting a new show of works by Percy Kelly at the Tullie House museum and art gallery in Carlisle (Line of Beauty: A Retrospective, 23 September-28 January 2018) certainly catch the eye. “Anecdotes [about the artist] have become part of Cumbrian folklore: the transvestite artist who played centre forward for Workington Town FC under Bill Shankly, the man who couldn’t stop drawing, Cumbria’s own Lowry." More than 100 works by Kelly spanning 65 years will go on show in this comprehensive exhibition featuring his watercolour landscapes, calligraphy and flower studies. Kelly's female persona was called Roberta by the way. In a series of poignant letters published by the exhibition curator Chris Wadsworth in 2004, Kelly said: "I have a feminine side to my character which has been and still is a curse. No doubt if I had been normal I might not have possessed the same creative spirit." Kelly died in 1993; "the seeming simplicity of his paintings of empty roads, lonely houses, drystone walls and bare fells is deceptive," the organisers say.