ADAM'S IMPORTANT IRISH ART 28th May 2025

76 56 TONY O’MALLEY HRHA (1913-2003) Silent Garden (1985) Oil on board, 91 x 60cm (35¾ x 23½’’) Signed with initials; also signed, inscribed, dated ‘Nov 1985’ and with artist’s oeuvre number 2678 verso € 12,000 - 15,000 Realising his artistic inclination relatively late in life, O’Malley turned to painting as a way to pass his convalescence when he contracted pleurisy and pneumonia in 1940. Perhaps because his illness kept him confined, O’Malley was drawn to the natural world. Working as a banker, O’Malley was stationed in Arklow in the 1950s. Buying his first car, he spent his weekends driving through Wicklow and Kilkenny, sketching the world that he saw. Encouraged by what he was accomplishing, O’Malley travelled to St. Ives in 1955 and partook in a three-week painting course. Here, he encountered the peace and acceptance that his life in Ireland was lacking. A self-taught artist, his work did not fit into the ideals of rural Ireland, nor did it lend itself to the Dublin School of teaching. O’Malley was an outcast in his country but, in St. Ives, he found a community of kindred spirits. In 1960, O’Malley left the narrow mindedness of Ireland behind and moved to St. Ives. He gave full reign to his artistic expression, adopting a philosophy greatly influenced by the Japanese idea of ‘shibui’. In this, beauty was to be perceived in the unfinished and the imperfect. O’Mal- ley allowed his pieces to be impressions of the emotions evoked by his subjects. He rejected the term ‘abstract’ and instead described his oeuvre as ‘non-objective’ and ‘non-figurative’.