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TONY O’MALLEY HRHA (1913-2003)
St Martin’s, April (1973)
Oil on canvas on board, 61 x 91.5cm (24 x 36”)
Signed; also signed in Irish, inscribed, dated 1973 and with Opus No. 7710 verso
Provenance: The Taylor Galleries, Dublin where purchased
Tony O’Malley (1913-2003) spent many years living and working in St. Ives in Cornwall, joining a thriving art
community that also included such figures as Patrick Heron, Peter Lanyon and William Scott. St. Ives was a
liberation for him, it gave him a life away from his former banking job in Ireland, and opened up a world of
studios, artists and conversations about art and Modernism that were still only peripheral at home, and par-
ticularly difficult to access outside of Dublin. There he could experiment with new forms and new art practices
that were still challenging to Irish audiences.
St. Martin’s - April
, was painted in 1973, a particularly happy year for O’Malley. It was the year in which he
married his wife Jane, an important turning point in his life. The couple were regular visitors to the island of St.
Martin’s, one of the Scilly Islands off the coast of Cornwall, and a favoured home from home for many of their
Cornish friends, including the artist Bryan Wynter (1915 -1975) and their friend, the collector and medical doc-
tor, Doctor Slack. The O’Malley’s usually went to St. Martin’s twice a year, in Spring and again in late Summer,
making sketches and gouaches that often inspired paintings to be executed back at their studio overlooking
Porthmeor Beach.
This would have been the case with
St. Martin’s, April
since it is painted on canvas laid on board, materials that
O’Malley did not take with him on his island escapes.
The forms in this painting occur again and again in O’Malley’s work, and defy specific interpretation, although
some motifs appear in other paintings of his work-table, where they may refer to his box of colours. Others
belong, exuberantly to his consciousness of the eternally moving, twitching, singing, soughing sounds of na-
ture which absorbed him wherever he was. Here, the colours remind us of the time of year, but lest we forget,
the artist has inscribed it in his native language at the lower right hand side of the painting.
O’Malley is one of a number of prominent Irish artists of the last century who were self-taught, yet he went
to receive every accolade open to artists in this country; honorary membership of the RHA, Saoi of Aosdána,
winner of numerous awards and honours for his long term commitment to the visual arts in Ireland, and an
Honorary Doctorate from Trinity College, Dublin.
The number 7710 on the reverse is the reference number in the O’Malley Archive.
Catherine Marshall
€ 8,000 - 12,000