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Nano Reid (1900-1981)
Friday Fare, 1945
Oil on canvas, 51 x 61cm (20 x 24”)
Signed
Exhibited:
€15,000 - 25,000
In its strong colours and assertive and complex use of line Friday Fare
is a key transitional painting in Nano Reid’s oeuvre, before she departed
into her later dark ambiguous representations of the figure and the land-
scape. One of her best known paintings, Friday Fare was shown at the
inaugural exhibition of the Drogheda Municipal Gallery in 1948 and
was subsequently included in the Irish section of the Venice Biennale
in 1950. On this occasion Reid, along with Norah McGuinness, repre-
sented the newly founded Republic of Ireland at the major international
exhibition of contemporary art. The work belonged to Eileen MacCa-
rvill, an academic, former revolutionary and an influential supporter and
patron of modern Irish art. Trained in Paris and London, Reid was one
of the most accomplished and innovative artists of 20th century Ireland.
Her individual contribution to modern painting was appreciated by a
wide spectrum of critics and writers and particularly by her fellow art-
ists although Reid often felt aggrieved at the lack of informed critical
responses to Irish visual art.
Kenneth McConkey has written that Friday Fare derives from a broad
tradition of post-cubist still-life painting, showing an awareness of the
later work of Georges Braque.[i] The perplexing vignette created by the
vase of flowers on the dresser is also reminiscent of the complex treat-
ment of space found in the work of Henri Matisse. Reid, familiar with
modern European painting, plays with patterning throughout the com-
position.The criss-cross shapes of the linoleum covered floor and that of
the table cloth compete with the curvilinear branches of the tree visible
through the window.
Apart from its easy absorption of cubism and expressionism, the flat-
tened perspective used in the work owes much to the art of Gerard Dil-
lon with whom Reid was a close friend and whose influence she openly
acknowledged, although she was the older and more experienced painter.
The two artists met in the mid 1940s when Reid was living in a flat in Dublin.
In the post-war years, Dillon’s fellow northerners, George and Madge Campbell
were house guests of Reid where they became part of the unconventional circle
of writers and artists associated with her.The Bohemian surroundings that they
enjoyed are evident in the painting. It depicts a bottle of wine, a paper bag torn
open to reveal its contents and two large flat fish resting on a paper covered
plate.The edge of a cast-iron fireplace, a familiar feature of flatland Dublin, can
be seen with its mantelpiece covered in books and objects.The large red bellows,
needed to keep the heat going, creates a striking motif on the floor.
Dillon and Reid shared a fascination with ancient Celtic art especially High
Cross carvings which they visited together at Monasterboice, near to Reid’s
family home in Drogheda. The simplicity of form seen in the rendering of the
fish in the painting with their bulging eyes and the compartmentalised use of
space elsewhere in the composition derive from such sources. The impact of
multifaceted viewpoints and overlay of shapes is most evident in the treatment
of the shutter and window at the left hand side. They sever the lavish still-life
display on the table top which is laid out at a radically different angle, directly
below eye-level.
The subject, the traditional Friday diet, reflects on the asceticism of Irish life,
both ancient and modern. Fishes are represented on a number of High Crosses
as a symbol of the feeding of the five thousand as well as being a recurring theme
in the work of Dillon. But in Friday Fare the frugality of the subject is chal-
lenged by the seductive tones of yellow, orange and red and the rich opaque pig-
ments that permeate the work. Here the evening meal is laid out as a commen-
tary on contemporary artistic life in post-war Ireland, one in which food and
drink, along with books and dilapidated Georgian houses provide basic needs
and vital pleasures. As in many of Reid’s paintings the apparent candour of the
content and its direct expressive qualities belie the sophisticated understanding
of form and handling of paint that the artist brings to her work.
Roisin Kennedy
Dublin Painters’ Exhibition, 1945 Cat. No. 34.; Venice Biennale, 1950, Cat. No. 13, Where Nano Reid was representing Ireland with No-
rah McGuinness; “Irish Art 1900-1950” Rosc Exhibition, 1975/76, The Crawford Gallery, Cork; “Nano Reid Retrospective”, Hugh Lane
Municipal Gallery 1974, Cat No. 23; “Camille Souter, Nano Reid”, Droghea Arts Centre & Linenhall Arts Centre, Castlebar, May/June
1999, cat. no. 61; “The New Millennium Wing Opening Exhibition of 20th Century Irish Painting”, January 2002- December 2003, The
National Gallery of Ireland; “Collectors Eye” Exhibition Cat. No. 25,The Model Arts and Niland Gallery, Sligo January - February 2004,
andThe Hunt Museum, Limerick March - April 2004, Cat. No. 25; and “Gerard Dillon - Art and Friendships”Exhibition, Adams, Dublin,
July 2013 and The Ava Gallery, Clandeboye, August 2013, Cat. No. 32
“Irish Art 1900-1950”, Rosc Exhibition, 1975/76; Nano Reid Retrospective, Catalogue, Dublin/Belfast 1974/75; Pyms Gallery, ‘Irish
Renascence: Irish art in a century of change’, 1986, p 114-115, illustrated; J. Sheehy, Irish Art 1900-1950, p 61;Kenneth McConkey, (1990)
A Free Spirit: Irish Art 1860-1960, p83, illustrated; Eamonn Mallie (ed.) (2,000) One Hundred Years of Irish Art, p258, illustrated p 259;
“Collectors Eye” 2004 Exhibition Catalogue illustrated page 14; “Gerard Dillon, Art and Friendships”, illustrated p.32; and “Art in Ireland
Since 1910” by Fionna Butler, 2013, illustrated p.100
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