58 / 196
46.
NANO REID (1905 - 1981)
Making a Rick
Oil on board, 51 x 61cms (20 x 24”)
Signed
Provenance: Anne and William O’Sullivan, Dublin. William was the former Keeper of Manuscripts at Trinity College Dublin
Exhibited: 1953 IELA Exhibition Dublin, Catalogue No. 63
“Nano Reid Exhibition” The Dawson Gallery Dublin 1956, Catalogue No. 16
“Nano Reid Retrospective” Hugh Lane Gallery Dublin, Nov/Dec 1974,
The Ulster Museum, Belfast Jan/Feb 1975, Catalogue No. 47
“George Campbell and the Belfast Boys”, Adam’s, Dublin July 2015, The Ava Gallery, August 2015, Catalogue No. 31
Literature: “George Campbell and the Belfast Boys,” illustrated page 31.
Exhibited as ‘Making The Rick’ at the Irish Exhibition of Living Art in 1953, this work was purchased by Reid’s friend, the late William O’Sullivan former
Keeper of Manuscripts at Trinity College Dublin. Reid most likely met ‘Billy’ O’Sullivan in the 1940’s when she took lodgers into her Fitzwilliam Square flat
who were studying at Trinity College. Her flat was also drop-in center for writers, poets and artists George Campbell, Gerard Dillon and Daniel O’Neill
whenever they were in Dublin.
Another title ‘Rick Makers, Donegal’ on a label indicates that Reid was sketching in the North West after visiting Gerard Dillon in 1951 on Inishlacken
Island, a mile from Roundstone village in Connemara. Similar to Dillon, Reid recorded people carrying out their daily chores in the West of Ireland and
both artists felt passionately about Ireland’s past. Land in Donegal was typical of the traditional pattern of Western Ireland. Each family had a number of
scattered plots. These include a garden for vegetables; fields for hay, grazing in the hills and a strip of bogland for their fuel needs during the winter.
Vivid colour attracts the viewer to the center of the composition. Two figures are making a rick of hay in a field within an enclosed shape with a cluster of
lopsided trees near a cottage. Brushstrokes in tones of blues form small mounds behind the slanted dwelling. More fields surround the figures on both
sides, but the lines appear abstract and are difficult to identify. In the foreground, rows of lazy beds appear to the right and childlike drawing resembling
animals graze in an enclosed wall.
Reid enjoyed mystery, myth and legend and ‘Making the Rick’ contains elements of mystery. Interviewed in the late 1950’s the artist stated, ‘you see the
trouble with most people and most painters is they look for the obvious. They don’t understand the old grass, the ruined castles, the burial mounds.’
Here the artist is not interested in light or depth but on the immediate treatment of her subject creating a distinctive expressive style of painting.
Karen Reihill September 2015
€5,000 - 7,000