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Evin Nolan
(b.1930, Kildare) is a painter and sculptor, best known for using multiple part shaped canvasses.
Primarily a self-taught artist, Nolan began painting watercolours in the early 1950s but later progressed to work-
ing with mixed media. He was awarded first prize at ‘Art in Context’, Belfast, in 1975 and two Taylor Prizes, for
landscape painting and watercolour painting. He had numerous one-man shows through the 1970s and early
1980s. The RHA Gallagher Gallery held a show of his work in 1991. His work is represented in the collections of
University Colleges, Dublin and Galway, Trinity College, Dublin and in the Irish Museum of Modern Art.
Jonathan Wade
(1941-1973) was born in Dublin. He studied part-time, for three years at the National College of
Art. He moved to London in 1962, working in an oil company depot while continuing to paint in his spare time.
His first solo show was held in 1966 and he exhibited ‘Painting ‘67’ at the Royal Hibernian Academy the follow-
ing year. In 1968 he held his second solo show, this time at the RHA gallery in Ely Place. An Irish Times review-
er noted that his images ‘have a ferocity which, if they can attain splendour as well, would rise to the quality of
Goya…’. The Evening Press found Wade’s world ‘eerie and haunted’.
He continued to exhibit widely and successfully and his work was purchased by the Arts Council, the Hugh Lane
Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Trinity College and CIE amongst others. Wade, died on January 22
nd
1973 fol-
lowing an accident on a motor bike.
Michael Ashur
was born in Dublin in 1950 and was a self-taught artist. Brian Fallon wrote of his work : “These
pictures glow with the incandescence of an electric storm. But there is a delicacy too; some of the superimposed
colours are as filmy as successive layers of transparent coloured gauze…Just by what calculation he works out his
sometimes almost incredibly involved geometrical forms, I cannot guess. Vasarely does this kind of thing too,
of course, but then Vasarely is known to hire teams of mathematicians and computerisers; Ashur, presumably,
works them out for himself.” Ashur was represented in Dublin by the David Hendriks Gallery and was included in
many joint exhibitions, particularly the Irish Exhibition of Living Art, Independent Artists and the Oireachtas Art
Exhibition.
He also held several one-man shows in the mid 1970s. There are examples of his work in the art collections of
University College Dublin, The Arts Council and formerly in the Bank of Ireland.