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Tony O’Malley HRHA (1913-2003)
A Silence (1991)
Oil and collage on board, 61 x 122cm (24 x 48”)
Signed with initials (three times). Signed, inscribed with title, dated 25/1/91 and numbered 3261 verso.
This is not the first painting with this title by Tony O’Malley. As early as 1971, O’Malley had produced a
painting also called
A Silence
.The earlier work, with its squarish format, almost completely blanketed in a dark
black/brown central feature framed with a thin blue surround, is very different both in composition and palette
to the work under discussion here. The repetition is an indication of O’Malley’s love of contemplation, also
shown in a 1965 painting entitled
Winter Silence
and two further paintings from 1967 called
Winter Silence
I
and
II
respectively.
Silence in O’Malley’s work is evocative of death, stillness, the void, but, as in the present painting, it is also
calls attention to its opposite, to sounds of various kinds. For O’Malley that nearly always meant birdsong or
occasionally, traditional music. Since death in O’Malley’s worldview is a normal, if arresting, part of the natural
cycle of the earth, the theme of silence has connotations of the landscape. This is especially true here where
the central, irregular void, is surrounded by small but colourful motifs that defy easy interpretation but occur
frequently in his paintings of birds and flowers.
Surrounding the central void in
A Silence
are forms which may represent the traditional instruments of Christ’s
Passion, such as the nails and the hammer, used in several of O’Malley’s Good Friday paintings. Even the five
holes towards the top of the painting, may refer to the five wounds. These symbols of Christ’s suffering and
death were regularly used in medieval art. For O’Malley they link this work to his Good Friday paintings which
in turn connect to his homeplace, Callan and surrounding medieval landmarks in Co. Kilkenny, particularly to
the work of the Callan sculptors, the O’Tunney brothers.
It was O’Malley’s practise to paint a ‘Good Friday’ painting on that day each year, as a link to the Christian cul-
ture he grew up with but also, as a reference to other moments in Irish history, to the death of Conchobar Mac
Nessa, the legendary, pre-historic King of Ulster, and to the great Irish High King, Brian Boru, who also died
on Good Friday.The Good Friday paintings therefore refer beyond the Christian event, to medieval Kilkenny,
and to Ireland itself.
The number 3261 on the reverse is the reference number in the O’Malley Archive.
€8,000 - 12,000