10
The Deepwell Collection
The collection of Irish paintings and sculptures which contributes so much to the friendly and welcoming atmosphere of
Deepwell always seems to be part of the ‘landscape’ of the house. It is so arranged - a bronze by Jerome Connor here, a can-
vas by Nathaniel Hone there – and it moves from room to room so freely - Roderic O’Conors and Leechs regularly change
places – that it hardly seems a collection at all. It appears more like a group of objects that complements a family’s way of
life.
This is an Irish home, elegantly appointed, and situated in so magnificent a setting with stupendous views across Dublin
Bay, that it seems Italianate in its beauty; but there is nothing foreign about the collection. It is intensely Irish from the
landscapes of James Humbert Craig to the contemporary sculptures of Gerda Frömel and Rowan Gillespie, the latter a cast
maquette for a local public monument.
This is a family collection and what is represented is two generations of taste: ‘contemporary’ Irish art acquired – much of it
from the artists themselves – by John Senior and then a more ‘historic’ collection, representing the best of Irish art - from a
time when Irish art was at its best period from the late 19
th
century to the present day – that has been purchased by his son.
The collection is deliberately not comprehensive and that is what makes it so personal. The fact that a number of artists are
represented by more than one , if not several, works, is immediately encouraging as it means that in both periods of collec-
tion – the 1940s, the later 1970s and early 80s – a deliberate discernment, an enthusiasm for art, has been exercised which
lends distinction to the collection as a whole.
It is with the group of sculptures by Jerome Connor – now recognised as one of Irelands’ finest sculptors’ – that one comes
closest to actual patronage. Most of these were purchased from the artist’s studio at a time when, after his bankruptcy in
1939, he needed patrons, and one of the bronzes,
The Bellman
(a coal delivery man), was cast specifically for John Reihill
Senior, providing a neat thematic link between artist and patron. Keating, Conor and more particularly O’Sullivan, were also
patronised then – the latter commissioned for family portraits (including an engaging chalk drawing of the younger John
Reihill as a child) – and west of Ireland subjects by both artists seem to have exercised a particular appeal.
