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The Tim Vignoles Collection 14
th
December 2015
TIM VIGNOLES: A LIFELONG DEDICATION TO COLLECTING
Tim Vignoles and I overlapped as students at Trinity College. We shared common interests in the arts, notably theatre, and
in books and literature. We knew writers and publishers. Tim became involved with the Dolmen Press and was a close
friend of Liam Miller’s. Through him he got to know Thomas Kinsella, John Montague, Sebastian Barry and Seamus Heaney.
He wrote them letters and kept their replies. He kept everything that shed light on Irish writing and was a dedicated specta-
tor rather than an artist or writer himself. He worked in theatre in Ireland and then England, and he ended up in Television,
first at the BBC and then working for the Hollywood Studios. The late Bill Harpur was a close friend in RTE. Tim got to know
Louis le Brocquy, both in France and in Dublin and had a collection of le Brocquy ephemera. The painter contributed to
many Dolmen Publications including designing the last Dolmen Press Logo for Liam Miller.
Another great enthusiasm was for Jack Yeats. Though the painter died before we arrived in Dublin from England he attract-
ed our attentions, me to write about him and his art, Tim to begin a wonderful collection of small drawings and ephemera,
and to know a great many stories about the painter through a friendship both of us developed, firstly with Victor Wadding-
ton, his devoted agent and dealer, later with the dealer’s sons, Theo and Leslie. Tim wrote elegant and funny letters, often
about the latest additions to his collection which never stopped growing, spreading like moss on a great rock of knowledge
and perception.