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76 TONY O’MALLEY HRHA (1913-2003)Life in the Pond II
Oil on canvas, 183 x 122cm (72 x 48”),
Signed with initials, signed again in Irish, inscribed with title in Irish and English and dated “9/96” (AR 5966) verso
Exhibited: “Tony O’Malley” Exhibtiion November/ December 2005, where purchased by present owner.
Literature: “Tony O’Malley” (2005) full page illustration
Tony O’Malley returned to Ireland from Cornwall, to live in a restored cottage near his birthplace in Callan, Co. Kilkenny in 1990. He was then 77 years
old and had lived with the kind of bad health that suggested even greater age. The house, in a ruinous state when they acquired it was brilliantly
restored by the O’Malleys but it is the garden, an artwork in itself - created by Tony’s wife, Jane, also an artist - that steals the attention of visitors. One
of its striking features is the presence of, not one but two water features, one an architecturally classical, moat-like pool frames one side of the house
and reflects light back into it. The other, out of immediate view from the house, at the other end of the garden, next to their shared studio space,
was a pond of a different kind - wild, bursting with vegetation, filled with fish and a haven for thirsty birds. The studio pool was a constant source of
inspiration for O’Malley, so much so that Jane recalls that following a bout of bronchial pneumonia and treatment in the intensive care unit of the local
hospital, he headed straight to his easel, where he immediately began a picture of the pond.
The painting for consideration here,
Life in the Pond II
, dated September, 1996, has to be seen in this context. It explodes with life and vitality, one
might even say defiance at O’Malley’s own physical frailties (only one lung following TB as a young man, survivor of a serious heart attack in his forties,
almost totally blind in one eye and diminished sight in the other and with ongoing circulation and bronchial problems). Yet this painting is among
the most joyful and exultant celebrations of nature, colour, and movement in Irish art. Despite his own fragile hold on life, he is impassioned by the
darting and flowing movements of the fish, the birds and grasses represented by dazzling touches of colour and feathery, delicate brush marks and
the sparkling turbulence of the water. O’Malley was one of the great colourists in Irish art. He first became intoxicated with colour when he visited the
Scilly isles and the Bahamas in the 1970s and 80s, but his use of colour following those trips is compartmentalised by comparison to the fluidity and
openness of the composition in Life in the Pond II. While he clearly exercises control over the movement from top to bottom, there is an ease and
joyfulness about this picture that marks it out as a particularly important painting from this period. It is not the painting of an old man, although the
image is perhaps more directed by memories of a habitat that he loves than anything his failing sight could have capture. Clearly his wife’s decision
to provide him with a pond beside the studio was an inspired one.
Catherine Marshall, August 2016
€ 20,000 - 30,000