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In the late 1940s Gerard Dillon entered into a stipend
arrangement with Victor Waddington, which allowed him
to spend more time in Connemara. Recognizing the broad
appeal of Dillon’s narrative images, Waddington encouraged
the artist to return to Connemara in preparation for his &rst
solo exhibition with him in November 1950. Dillon rented a
cottage in Moyard located between Clifden and Letterfrack,
visiting the surrounding area recording local events of pony
races, tinkers and religious processions or depicting the local
people in their cottages and carrying out their daily chores of
thatching, harvesting, cutting and collecting turf.
Born in Belfast, Dillon admired both William Conor for his
portrayal of working class people in Belfast and Seán Keating’s
illustrations of J.M. Synge’s
Playboy of !e Western World.
Both
artists recorded and highlighted the harshness of people’s lives
in an urban environment and in the West of Ireland. It is
hardly surprising, therefore when Dillon &rst visited the west
on a cycling trip in 1939 that he should have responded to
the people and the landscape as he did. He was immediately
enthralled by the landscape of misty hills, spongy bogs, lakes,
streams, and a patchwork design of tiny plots protected by
ancient dry stonewalls over carpets of stony land. Living among
the people on these frequent visits evoked strong feelings for
the artist, which he expressed throughout his life. Following
his exhibition at Waddington’s, one reviewer commented, “In
his paintings of the people of Connemara, Gerard Dillon is
deliberately, but not self-consciously naïve and such canvasses
…have a simple, kindly humour.”
A Wet Day
,
Ireland
, was executed on one of these visits to
Connemara when he invited friends,George Campbell, Arthur
Armstrong, Nano Reid, and Mollie Dillon to stay with him. In
August 1950 Dillon invited other friends he met at the Abbey
Arts Centre outside London. !e visitors Bernard Smith,
Leonard French and Arthur Rose were Australians belonging
to the London artists’ colony, which served as a temporary
home for a range of artists trying to get a foothold in London’s
contemporary art industry.
!e composition depicts a mother protecting her bare footed
children with a homespun shawl from rain as they walk on a
bog road close to ponies. !e dyed red wide skirt, the dark
cloak, mountains, blanket bogs and grey and brown ponies point
to Connemara. During the turf-cutting season, woman and
children helped to spread out the turf after the men had cut
the sods and thrown them up onto the heather to dry. With no
shelter on the bog roads, woman and children would have often
got caught in showers of rain. Woman would have worn the
generous shawl or cóta to keep warm from the prevailing winds
and its oiled wool would have acted as a barrier from the rain.
After Bernard Smith departed Moyard, Dillon wrote to him
describing the success of his sketching trips with Leonard
French due to good weather but was unable to get out when
Arthur Rose stayed, “It pissed the whole time, so he must
think Connemara is hell”. Dillon also gave a description of a
pony show in Clifden remarking on the ponies, “such unusual
colours-smoky grey as you get out of a chimney -the oaken meal
colour…it was wonderful”
Karen Reihill is currently researching the life and work of
Gerard Dillon
!'#,### - "#,###
86
Gerard Dillon (1916-1971)
A Wet Day, Ireland
Oil on board, 38.5 x 52.5cm (15 x 20"”)
Signed. Inscribed with title verso
Provenance: Sold in these rooms, Important Irish Art Sale, 5th December 2006, Lot 64
