(b Dublin, 22 Sept 1943). Irish painter and
printmaker. He studied architecture at Bolton Street Technical
School, Dublin, from 1961 to 1964. While acting as assistant to
Michael Farrell in 1967, he was introduced to hard-edge abstraction
and decided to learn to paint. His natural inclination was towards
figurative art, initially in his use of the figure as a silhouette
in the Marchers series and subsequently in 3rd May—Goya (1970;
Dublin, Hugh Lane Mun. Gal.) and other pastiches of paintings by
Poussin, Ingres and Delacroix, in which he filled in the outline
with flat colour. Such early works were heavily influenced by
photography and by a social or political commitment, reinforced with
a striking visual wit. These were followed by paintings satirizing
the awakening interest in contemporary art in Dublin, as in Woman
with Pierre Soulages (1972; Dublin, Bank of Ireland Col.) in which a
figure is shown scrutinizing an abstract canvas.
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