FANS of Percy Kelly's paintings are a determined bunch.

One buyer was so eager to take his pick from the latest exhibition, he arrived at Cockermouth's Castlegate House Gallery 12 hours before the doors opened.

Police were driving past the gallery at 2.30 in the morning when they spotted a man waiting patiently on the doorstep, in the dark.

When asked if he was locked out, he told police: "I want to buy a painting."

"He queued for more than 12 hours!" said gallery director Chris Wadsworth.

"We've had two other Percy Kelly exhibitions, and he had missed out on what he wanted.

He and his wife were utterly determined to get what they wanted.

They bought a beautiful little painting."

With 64 works on show by the late Cumbrian artist - including his heavy, dark, charcoal drawings, and delicate flower studies - the bulk of the exhibition was snapped up within days by Kelly enthusiasts.

The gallery has been contacted by enthusiasts from as far afield as Florida, Alabama and Moscow.

Percy Kelly died seven years ago, lonely and in exile in Norfolk.

Reluctant to sell his paintings, except to people he truly liked, the poverty-stricken artist left a studio crammed full of his life's work.

His son Brian Kelly - the two had not seen each other for 27 years - inherited the collection.

He asked Chris Wadsworth to catalogue and handle the previously unseen paintings and drawings, a task she described as "one of the greatest things that has ever happened to me".

"Nobody else has ever painted Cumbria like Percy painted it," explained Chris.

"He painted it with no romantic side at all - like it is - but there's a special added something that really, really appeals to people."

She added: "People are not buying as a record of a place, or a memory of a holiday.

It's something much more than that."

Percy Kelly was born in 1918, in Workington.

He worked for the postal service, and served with the 6th Border Regiment and the Royal Signals during the war.

During the 1950s he was subpostmaster at Great Broughton.

His works depict the West Cumbrian villages and landscape he knew so well, and which he painted from memory after he left the county in 1970.

During the dark, depressed days of the last decade of his life - after his second wife had left him - Kelly formed a friendship with Joan David, of Kendal.

Some of the hundreds of illustrated letters he wrote to her are featured in the current exhibition, along with a video of Joan recounting her memories of the eccentric artist.

Sadly, she died in January.

"She kept him going a lot of the time because she would buy the odd painting," said gallery director Chris.

"He would only sell to people he really liked.

If he was totally destitute, Joan would buy a painting, or she would buy him paints and paper.

She really looked after him for all the time he was on his own.

She was a very, very kind woman."

* The exhibition runs until August 30 at Castlegate House Gallery, Cockermouth.

The gallery is open daily from 10.30am to 5pm (Wednesdays until 7pm); closed Thursdays and Sundays.

Information 01900-822149.