San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
A life devoted to art of medicine, artistry of African Americans
As it is for most families, Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a special time for Dr. Harmon Kelley’s family. But it’s one that has been shadowed with dread in recent years.
“Martin Luther King Day is a wonderful holiday,” Dr. Margaret Kelley, his daughter and partner in Southeast OB-GYN Associates, said. “But he got sick on Martin Luther King Day in 2020 and had to have an emergency pacemaker inserted. And so there’s been a little anxiety every Martin Luther King holiday since.”
This year’s holiday passed, but 10 days later, on Jan. 26, Kelley died of a heart attack. He was 77.
Kelley was gentle, gracious and gregarious. He offered encouragement. If he admired something you did, he would send notes scratched out on manila stationery cards.
Beyond his family legacy — his wife of 53 years, Harriet, his daughters Margaret and Jennifer R. Kelley, a licensed clinical social worker with an MBA — he leaves indelible stamps in medicine and, with Harriet, in Black art.
Born in Cameron, Kelley went to Prairie View A&M University, where he met Harriet, a science major whose father had developed the school’s science program.
A commissioned officer in the Army, Kelley served as chief of the obstetrics and gynecology at Darnall Army Medical Center in Fort Hood before moving to San Antonio and founding Southeast OB-GYN Associates,
where he practiced for 44 years, the past 20 with Margaret.
“He devoted his whole life to the better obstetrical and gynecological care for his patients, and that was his devotion,” Margaret said. “He mentored me and so many other really young obstetrician-gynecologists, and in this world, they’re mostly women.”
But it was as curators of Black art that Harmon and Harriet Kelly became internationally known.
During the mid-1980s, realizing how little they knew about Black art, they were inspired to study, reach out to experts and begin collecting.
“It was a labor of love for them, something they could do together,” Margaret said. “They were proud to be Black, and art was another way to preserve our heritage.”
Before art is collected, it is born from the gathering of an artist’s life, interests, dreams and fears.
It’s Jacob Lawrence collecting
memories and images from the Great Migration and painting them into 60 magnificent panels.
It’s Elizabeth Catlett scooping up the rich clay of African
American heritage and Mexican culture, and molding them into tributes to those she called “my two people.”
It’s Mary Lee Bendolph collecting scraps of cloth and sewing them into majestic quilts.
And it’s the collectors who see their genius and allow others to bear witness to their gifts.
Few have done this grander for Black artists than the Kelleys.
“The Harmon and Harriet Kelley Collection of African American Art: Works on Paper” exhibition is on a national museum tour through 2024.
Aïssatou Sidimé-Blanton, vice president of the San Antonio Ethnic Art Society and a passionate collector of Black art, said, “Before moving to Texas, there were just two things I associated with San Antonio — the Alamo, and the Harmon and Harriet Kelley Collection of African American Art. Theirs was the first private collection of African American art ever shown at a Smithsonian Institution. It was sparked by being flummoxed at not recognizing the artists in a major 1986 art exhibition hosted by San Antonio Museum of Art.
“So, their answer? Apply their joint scientific minds to researching and seeking out the very best African American art.”
Sidimé-Blanton called the Kelleys “royalty” among African American collectors.
“Their collection,” she said, “remains the measuring stick against which we assess our own progress at showcasing and sharing images that capture the full spectrum of our community, and its role in, and contributions, to this country.”
Margaret Kelley said her parents advocated for Black artists whose work was undervalued.
“I’m glad he lived long enough to see this change and the recognition and appreciation of those who documented our history,” she said.
The artistry of Harmon Kelley’s life will always be appreciated.