47
Patrick Collins HRHA (1910-1994)
Estimate:
€10,000 - €15,000
Passed
Live Auction
Irish & International Art
Size
21 by 25in. (53.3 by 63.5cm)
Description
Title: NORMANDY LANDSCAPE WITH DESERTED BARN, 1974
Note: At a certain point, Paris loomed large in the imagination of Patrick Collins. In many ways the most quintessentially Irish of painters, with a profound sympathy for the rural landscape - bogland, smallholdings, lakes - and even for the watery Irish light, his first love had been literature. Having come through unhappy years in St Vincent's Orphanage he worked as a clerk in Dublin, lived in a bedsit and read voraciously. Joyce particularly impressed him. Moving to a tower in Howth Castle, he began trying to write but, the more he visited galleries, the more he found he was becoming increasingly interested in painting. From 1950 he began to exhibit his work and his first, extremely successful, solo show was at the Ritchie Hendrik's Gallery in 1956. Despite being well established and highly regarded in Ireland, he felt a little hemmed in by the insularity of the local scene and, in 1971, thought he would try Paris, an international creative hub, which he had previously visited. He wasn't particularly looking for anything, it was more to get away for a while, "and look at things from outside," as he put it to Des Moore. In the event, his time in Paris was tough and unproductive. He later recounted how he would trek across the city to call on poet John Montague, hoping he'd be at home and would offer him a meal. Then, in 1973, he moved on to live in a farmhouse in Orne, Normandy, a rural setting more to his taste, and began to paint steadily again. This painting dates from that relatively contented period. The barn became his studio. Sligo was his idealised notion of home from childhood on, and that sense, of home and belonging in the landscape, carries through strongly here. The band of trees seem to enfold and protect the barn and, particularly, the distant farmhouse.Aidan Dunne,September 2023
Frame size: 28.5 by 32.5in. (72.4 by 82.6cm)
Note: At a certain point, Paris loomed large in the imagination of Patrick Collins. In many ways the most quintessentially Irish of painters, with a profound sympathy for the rural landscape - bogland, smallholdings, lakes - and even for the watery Irish light, his first love had been literature. Having come through unhappy years in St Vincent's Orphanage he worked as a clerk in Dublin, lived in a bedsit and read voraciously. Joyce particularly impressed him. Moving to a tower in Howth Castle, he began trying to write but, the more he visited galleries, the more he found he was becoming increasingly interested in painting. From 1950 he began to exhibit his work and his first, extremely successful, solo show was at the Ritchie Hendrik's Gallery in 1956. Despite being well established and highly regarded in Ireland, he felt a little hemmed in by the insularity of the local scene and, in 1971, thought he would try Paris, an international creative hub, which he had previously visited. He wasn't particularly looking for anything, it was more to get away for a while, "and look at things from outside," as he put it to Des Moore. In the event, his time in Paris was tough and unproductive. He later recounted how he would trek across the city to call on poet John Montague, hoping he'd be at home and would offer him a meal. Then, in 1973, he moved on to live in a farmhouse in Orne, Normandy, a rural setting more to his taste, and began to paint steadily again. This painting dates from that relatively contented period. The barn became his studio. Sligo was his idealised notion of home from childhood on, and that sense, of home and belonging in the landscape, carries through strongly here. The band of trees seem to enfold and protect the barn and, particularly, the distant farmhouse.Aidan Dunne,September 2023
Frame size: 28.5 by 32.5in. (72.4 by 82.6cm)
Condition
Excellent condition.
Medium
oil on canvas
Signature
signed and dated lower right; titled and with Tom Caldwell Gallery label on reverse
Provenance
Tom Caldwell Gallery, Belfast;Private collection
