Adam's IMPORTANT IRISH ART 27 SEPTEMBER 2023

74 65 GERARD DILLON (1916 - 1971) Masked Figure and Nude Oil on board, 86.5 x 122.5cm (34” x 48”) Signed; also signed, inscribed with title, and address ‘3 Greville Road, London N.W.6’, in the artist’s hand verso € 15,000 - 20,000 Sometime in 1967 Dillon joined a life drawing glass at the Sarah Siddons School, Paddington Institute in London and from that point onwards nudes became more prominent in his work. He often incorporated them into strange and dreamlike landscapes with Pierrot figures. Such as Red Nude with Loving Pierrot or Once Upon a Wavelength . While we may not consider this a nude in the traditional sense, the flesh tones replaced with a striped black and green body, it is still a distinct rendering of the female form. The work is highly graphic, emphasised by the sharp lines of Pierrot’s body, echoed in the flat rectangular bed on which the nude figure lies. It appears as if it is floating above a blue sea, which Dillon has painted loosely, with quick criss-crossing strokes of colour. The figure appears slightly afraid, as if she is a trying to break free of the striped ties of the bed that she is lying on. While above her an unusual arrow points down as if orientating the viewer within the composition. The masked Pierrots or clown figures were also a common trope in Dillon’s work from the mid- 1960s onwards. As is well documented, the death of his brother Joe in 1962, to whom he was very attached, had a profound impact on Dillon. The idea of the clown representing a satirical sinister element, shown here with a coy smile upon its face, can be seen in other works from the period. Dillon acknowledged them in his work saying ‘I think it’s nature’s way of letting you know that you are on the way out’. (James White, Gerard Dillon: An Illustrated Biography, Dublin 1994, p. 90) The figure in this work, with the black mask and piercing green eyes, is very similar in style to those in Entertaining Friends , 1968, (Institute of Public Administration, Dublin). Three figures, whose bodies are decorated in leafy vegetation, sit in a circle before the kneeling white Pierrot. The work also employs the decorative use of stripes, in the cloth on the ground on which a tea party has been set and in the striking blue and green colour palette. It is often remarked of his Pierrot works, that Dillon was using them to represent himself within the paintings, allowing him to adopt a role without being immediately identifiable. Towards the end of his life, he took a more free and lyrical approach to his painted works, embracing the abstract and moving into an imagined world inhabited by his masked characters. Niamh Corcoran, September 2023