Mid-Summer Window with Moths. 21.6.1992
Artist
Tony O'Malley
(1913 - 2003)
Date1992
MediumOil on board
Dimensions125.8 x 125.8 cm
ClassificationsPaintings
Credit LineCollection & image © Hugh Lane Gallery.
Purchased, 1992.
© The Estate of Tony O'Malley.
Object number1826
DescriptionTony O'Malley's coming to painting relatively late in life sparked an instinctive urgency in him to keep painting and not to waste any time. He initially started painting while convalescing from tuberculosis and he continued to paint while working for the Munster and Leinster Bank. Having retired from the bank he moved in 1960 to St. Ives, in Cornwall. The thirty years that O'Malley lived in the creatively conducive environment of St. Ives were interspersed with summer visits to Ireland. He also painted in Lanzarote and in the Bahamas where his wife had familial connections. O'Malley's style developed from early figuration to a lyrical abstraction which was usually grounded in recognisable and recurring motifs. The date on which he painted Mid-Summer Window with Moths is physically incised on the surface of the painting and this emphasis on place, date and time reflects his desire to anchor highly evocative, though transitory moments. Windows, as a theme, reappear frequently throughout his work. Painted in Callan, the painting amplifies O'Malley's visual, sensory and emotive responses to a moment at twilight on a warm summer's evening. Here the flitting insects are abstracted through his use of scattered patterns set amidst earth tones interspersed with highlights of rich colour.
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