Adam's The Antoinette and Patrick J.Murphy Collection 23rd October 2019

146 133 PATRICK COLLINS HRHA (1911-1994) Bogland (1970) Oil on board, 60 x 93cm (23.6 x 36.6“) Signed Provenance: With the Tom Caldwell Gallery, Belfast. Exhibited: David Hendriks Gallery, Dublin June 1970, Catalogue No. 12; Tom Caldwell Gallery, Dublin July 1979, Catalogue No.2; Belltable Gallery, Limerick April 1981, No. 37; ‘ Patrick Collins Retrospective ’, Douglas Hyde Gal- lery, Crawford Gallery, Ulster Museum, 1982, Cat. 58. Literature: Frances Ruane, ‘ Patrick Collins ’, Arts Councils of Ireland, 1980, p.54 (illus), p. 110. € 15,000 - 20,000 Following a brief period at the end of the 1960s when his paintings began to suffer from a fuzzy formlessness and sentimentality, Patrick Collins retreated to Connemara, working for nine months in 1970 digging drainage ditches. This resulted in a remarkable series of bog paintings, their renewed vigour coming at a critical point in his development. Collins used a few strong shapes to anchor these austere compositions, stripping away inessentials with exceptional boldness. Bogland shows clearly how Collins returned to an elemental absorption with the land. Because it’s so closely associated with Ireland, the bog would have appealed to Collins as subject matter. An evocative aspect of these pictures is that, given the subject, how he managed to paint such a strong presence of moisture and light into the animated surface. These compositions focus on the bog, without a trace of sky, buildings, trees, cows or people. The subject matter is unrelenting, inevitably leading us to contemplate the ultimate return of all living matter to the earth. The composition of Bogland is simple and powerful: a few strong bars set against empty space. A strong direc- tional pull between the two verticals is established, animating the space in between. Collins began his initial exploration of empty, or ‘negative’, space in the early 1960s but in the Bog paintings voids are used for even greater emotional effect. Collins wanted his empty spaces to “speak.” They certainly do that in Bogland, where loneliness and isolation are expressed with a touching poignancy. Dr Frances Ruane HRHA, July 2019