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paintings from the esb collection
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th
december 2014
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Fergus O’Ryan RHA (1911-1989)
Autumn Flood, Annamoe, Co. Wicklow
Oil on board, 63 x 75cm (24½ x 29½”)
Signed
€1,000 - 2,000
Fergus O’Ryan was born in Limerick in 1911 and studied under Richard Butcher at the
Limerick School of Art before attending the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art. He is
listed as first exhibiting at the RHA in 1938 and from then he exhibited almost every
year until 1984.
O’Ryan held solo shows at the Victor Waddington Galleries in Dublin in 1950 and in
1954. In 1952 he provided the illustrations for Patricia Lynch’s Tales of Enchantment,
and in 1953 he designed a stamp to mark An Tostal. In 1956 he won the President Hyde
Gold Medal Award at the Oireachtas exhibition. In 1959 he was appointed an associate
of the RHA becoming a full member in 1960. He died in 1989.
O’Ryan’s works are included in the collections of the Crawford Municipal Gallery in
Cork and Dublin City Gallery, the Hugh Lane.