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BARRIE COOKE HRHA (1931-2014) EASTER RISING SERIES, 1966 (LOTS 109 - 116)
Barrie Cooke was born in Cheshire in 1931. After a childhood spent in England and Bermuda he moved to the United States to study Art History at
Harvard University. Subsequently he studied drawing and painting at Skowhegan in Maine before moving to a small cottage in County Clare, in 1954.
The following year he held his first solo exhibition in Dublin and received a scholarship to study with Oskar Kokoschka in Salzburg. He represented
Ireland at the Paris Biennale in 1963.
Although based in Ireland since the 1950s, Cooke’s frequent trips to countries such as Lapland, Borneo, Malaya and New Zealand has imbued his
expressionist, semi-abstract paintings with a wide range of pictorial imagery.
This fuses with his immersion in the water-rich landscape of Ireland and his interest in marine life and fishing. In contrast, Cooke also painted many
nudes and portraits as well as producing several sculptures. A member of Aosdána he exhibited widely throughout Europe, the USA and Canada
and New Zealand. Major retrospectives were held in the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin (1986), the Haags Gemeentemuseum, The Hague (1992), LAC,
Perpignan, France (1995), the Royal Hibernian Academy Gallagher Gallery (2003) and The Irish Museum of Modern Art in 2011 on the occasion of his
80th birthday. His paintings are represented in the Irish Museum of Modern Art, the Ulster Museum, the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Haags
Gemeentemuseum, and in many other collections worldwide. Cooke won the Marten Toonder Award in 1988, and the Irish-American Cultural Insti-
tute’s O’Malley Award in 2002.
This series of works lots 109 - 116 of the Easter Rising are unusual in the artist’s oeuvre and date from 1966, the first major anniversary of the 1916
Rising. It has been suggested that Cooke painted this series for an exhibition of work by invited artists at the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Art, Dub-
lin, to celebrate the 50th year celebrations of the Easter Rising.
109 BARRIE COOKE HRHA (1931-2014) Execution of ConnollyOil on board, 34 x 35cm (13¼ x 13¾’’)
Signed, inscribed with title and dated 1966 verso
Provenance: The artist’s family
€ 1,500 - 2,500