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43
Patrick Collins HRHA (1911-1994)
Winter Robin
Oil on muslin laid on board, 24 x 19cm (9½ x 7½”)
Signed; inscribed with title verso
Exhibited: “Patrick Collins” Exhibition Ritchie Hendriks Gallery, May
1967 Cat. No.19 where purchased by Sir Basil Goulding
€2,000 - 4,000
44
Patrick Collins HRHA (1911-1994)
Nude
Oil on canvas, 44 x 52.5cm (17½ x 20½”)
Signed and dated (19)’61
Provenance: With Ritchie Hendriks Gallery, remnants of label verso
€4,000 - 6,000
Unfortunately due to reframing we have lost the title of this work so have not been able to trace to it’s original exhibition. “Nude” is the first
of a series of female nudes that Collins did throughout the 1960’s .Two large nudes from 1965 from the Basil Goulding Collection are inThe
Butler Galllery while later works had titles such as “The Siren” and “Lake Siren” where the nude represents mother nature be it the waters of
the lake or sea. Brian Fallon has compared the early Collin’s nudes to works by Francis Bacon. As Francis Ruane in her 1982 monograph on
the artist points out “These paintings are certainly emotionally distant from the lyrical landscapes characteristically associated with Collins.”
Many regard the 1960’s as Collin’s finest period of work and all three works offered here Lots 43 - 45 are from that period and give a good
overview of his work at that time
.
Sligo born Patrick Collins was a self taught artist, aside from the evening classes he took at the National College of Art while working for an
insurance company. In the 1940s he took a tower in Howth Castle as his home and it fast became a meeting place for a select group of artists
and writers. Collins flourished within this cultural circle and by 1950 he had begun exhibiting at the Irish Exhibition of Living Art. In 1958
his Liffey Quayside, now housed in the National Gallery of Ireland, won the National Award at the Guggenheim International Show in New
York. Five years later his work appeared again in New York when he was one of twelve artists in a group show organised by the Arts Coun-
cil, Dublin. In the interim a solo show was held of Collins’ work at the Ritchie Hendriks Gallery, and he had begun to exhibit at the RHA.
Following the success of these shows his work was included at the Oireachtas Art Exhibition,The Arts Council of Belfast and the Mercury
Gallery in London, as well as solo shows at David Hendriks and Tom Caldwell Galleries in Dublin and Belfast. In 1980 Collins was elected
HRHA and a member of Aosdána the following year. His works can be found in the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Hugh Lane Municipal
Gallery, Crawford Municipal Gallery and Ulster Museum.