During World War II, Elvira Reilly, a New Yorker, volunteered her skills as an artist at service clubs and hospital wards, making portrait sketches of servicemen. After the war, in February 1946, while staying at the Tides Hotel in Key West, Reilly spent her mornings sketching local scenes, and the evenings sketching servicemen and women at the USO on Duval Street. In 1947 she purchased a home in Key West, continued with sketches at the USO, and began, along with her friend Gertrude Laubscher, to give free art lessons to children in Bayview Park.
Reilly, Elvira. Royal Poinciana on Whitehead Street. Watercolor, 16 one half by 17 one half inches.
In February 1949 the Key West Citizen reviewed Reilly’s exhibit at the Woman’s Club, “Mrs. Reilly, a Key West enthusiast, has been coming here for four winters, and her painter’s eye has caught the richness of the local scene in a most provocative manner. Keenly interested in all phases of the life of the community, she has found great variety of subject matter here, from cock fights, fisherman’s shacks, street scenes, ruins on stormy beaches, lovely old houses, the lustier establishments dedicated to night life on the waterfront. In all cases her color, style and mood is adapted to the character of the subjects. Mrs. Reilly believes, modestly, that a painting can be useful in showing the people what their community is like. This she has done over and over again, as in such studies as ‘The Rock from La Concha,’ a perspective of Duval Street to the ocean painted in warm earth tones, accented with lush greens and the scarlet of the Royal Poinciana trees and ‘Cockfight Intermission’ an arrangement of figures, color and light. This last has both tension and vitality in technique as well as in her handling of color. Mrs. Reilly displays the sure touch of the mature craftsman. ‘Pedro’s Old Place’ another familiar aspect of island life, is an interesting composition of a shack on its own little patch of sand surrounded by the incredible green of water and sky, with an imaginative grouping of seashells in the immediate foreground. The artist gives free reign again to her imagination for a small painting of a Cuban and his fighting cock. Over his head there is a rosy cloud on which two cocks are fighting showing his bird, of course, the victor. While Mrs. Reilly generally uses a palette that is warm and vivid and rather high in key, she occasionally changes her mood as in ‘Stormy Night,’ a nocturnal study of wind swept ruins and beach that has a haunting quality. There is also a fragile watercolor of a sea-grape tree with scanty foliage and a few crimson blooms against milky green waters, that is almost oriental in design. ‘Papaya Still Life,’ definitely French in feeling, is another example of the artist’s versatility. President Truman’s ‘Little White House’ is represented in a cheerful sunlit study. Mrs. Reilly likes the way of life in Key West, the activities of the people who live here, the things they take part in. She finds it more leisurely than any other place in the United States, and is never at a loss for new subjects. She will continue to stay here and paint until she returns to New York to attend the opening of her one-man show at the Argent Galleries on April the 18th. Although she has exhibited widely throughout the country, this will be her first show consisting entirely of Key West paintings.”
Reilly, Elvira. Big Pine Key Deer. Watercolor, 19 by 24 inches.
Membership: West Martello Gallery, Key West, Director; Key West Artists Group, 1952; Allied Artists of America; National Association of Women Artists; Ridgewood Art Association; Gotham Painters.
Exhibits: Key West Woman’s Club, February-March 1949, fourteen oils, The Little White House-Truman’s Beach, Sponge Auction, White Street, Tropical Fish, Julio’s Fighting Cocks, The Rock from the La Concha, The Red Dress, Diving for Coins, The Arch Fish House, Fighting Cocks, Barber, Coffee and the Gang, End of Whitehead Street, Old Curry Hardware, watercolors, Barber Shop, Galveston Lane, Olivia Street, gouache, Pedro’s Old Place, Cockfight Intermission, Hurricane Relic, Sponge and Sea Fan, Shells and Coconuts, After the Storm, Roasting Coffee, Stormy Night, Unloading Turtle, Tropical Shack, Royal Poinciana, Half Moon House, Ghostly Pelican. Argent Gallery, New York City, April 1949, first one man show in New York, Key West painting exhibited at the Key West Woman’s Club in February; Key West Artists Group, East Martello Gallery, December 1952; Miami Beach Art Center, Mexican Art, February 1953; Karns’ Studio, February 1953; Key West Art and Historical Society, East Martello Tower, January 1954; All Key West Artists Exhibit, East Martello Tower, November 1955, Summer; National Airlines Offices, New York and Chicago, Four Key West Artists, 1955, including, Key West Shrimp Boats; Key West Artists Group Annual Street Fair, February 1956, 1957; East Martello Tower, February-March 1957, with Lephe Holden, oil and watercolor paintings; Key West Art and Historical Society, East Martello Tower, March 1957, The Silver Dollar; East Martello Gallery, November 1957, Julio’s Fighting Cocks; Key West Art and Historical Society, Members’ Art Show, East Martello Gallery and Museum, April 1958, Market in Haiti, Julio’s Fighting Cocks; Argent Gallery, New York City.
