Padraig Mac Miadhachain: A West Country Retrospective

Pรกdraig Mac Miadhachรกin A West Country Retrospective Monday 16th - Friday 27th March 2020

Pádraig Mac Miadhacháin A West Country Retrospective Monday 16th - Friday 27th March 2020 All works in this exhibition are from the Artist's Studio

The Gallery @ Duke’s Brewery Square Dorchester DT1 1GA 01305 265080 www.dukes-auctions.com

Duke's are delighted to hold this retrospective exhibition of the works of Pรกdraig Mac Miadhachรกin (1929-2017).

A chronological exhibition showcasing the evolution of the Artist and his love for Purbeck and the West Country.

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to Jane Mac Miadhachรกin for providing us with the honour of hosting this exhibition.

Pรกdraig Mac Miadhachรกin - A VIVID LIFE Born in Downpatrick, County Down, Northern Ireland in 1929, Pรกdraig Mac Miadhachรกin moved to Swanage in Dorset aged twenty-four.

Initially Mac Miadhachรกin trained in Fine Art at Belfast College of Art (1947-1949) where his time was spent "purely drawing.....academic training".

He then studied portrait painting under Sean Keating at the National College of Art, Dublin (1950).

In 1960 he won the British Council Scholarship to the Academy of Fine Art, Krakow, Poland (sponsored by the Polish Government).

It was here that he first came upon the work of Piotr Potworowski, who was a Polish landscape painter who also had links with painters in St. Ives, Cornwall. Mac Miadhachรกin admired Potworowski 's

"natural feeling for the landscape, the way he abstracted it and his gorgeous colour and texture."

It encouraged him to work less with the human figure and more with "the landscape or whatever I was standing in front of." In time, Mac Miadhachรกinโ s own paintings became more abstract, shifting between

fantasy and narrative, or figurative and abstract. He was also happy to work with colours which ranged from the riotous to the subdued.

Mac Miadhachรกin painted full-time for approximately sixty years. For the first eighteen months after leaving college he supported his painting by working at a youth hostel at Killynether Castle, County Down.

When the hostel closed down it was an ex-college friend who suggested he came to Swanage.

Here he found work in the kitchens of a local hotel in Studland. He met a local painter and teacher from Corfe Castle by the name of Edgar Milward and together they rented The Old Mill in Swanage.

"I came back from work about two o'clock every day and we went down to the Mill and opened up, painted and sold pictures. We had tilley lamps for light at night because there was no electricity."

By the end of the first summer Mac Miadhachรกin had saved enough money to go spend the winter in Ibiza.

"There was no airport in those days, just a boat once a week from Barcelona. There were about twenty foreigners living on the island, quite a few painters. Stayed all winter and came back in the spring, no money again so back to the hotel for another season."

However, that was the last time, except for one separate occasion, when Pรกdraig Mac Miadhachรกin worked at anything other than painting. "You don't need a lot of money to live in Swanage, most of the things I enjoy,

like walking, swimming and mooching around the beach, don't cost anything."

Since this first winter trip abroad, Mac Miadhacháin made winter travel a regular fixture

"For about twenty years I used to go the Canary Islands. In those days you could get a passage on liners from Southampton, going to Cape Town or Montevideo, or wherever. A week before they sailed if they hadn't filled up every berth they'd sell them off to those going to the Canaries. There was so much more daylight for working, so I painted down there. When you're travelling by sea you can bring an enormous amount of baggage, so I’d bring lots of canvases back". Later visits to Uruguay and Argentina also produced works of note.

For Mac Miadhacháin Purbeck was a very special place, in particular the headland of St. Aldhelm's, which can be fiercely wild. On Summer days however "You can feel the warmth of the sun on your skin and through to

your bones, it’s a spiritual quality up there, a place I go to regenerate".

Apart from occasional outbursts into bright colour, Mac Miadhacháin remained fairly constant to the 'natural' colours of the Purbeck coast, and it is in these coastal paintings that the Artist was at his most serene.

The paintings possess a tranquillity which truly reflect Mac Miadhacháin's feelings about the place

the tremendous green in the fields, the beautiful blue triangle of sea glimpsed while walking, the white cliffs halfway between Haysom's Quarry and St. Aldhelm's Head and the grey stone walls and lichened bushes that grow up around them".

Accompanying Mac Miadhacháin’s love of coastal buildings was his love of boats. Following on from his winters spent in the Canaries, Padraig would spend the winter months in St Ives. “We’ve been going down there

for about three months instead of the Canaries, staying in an old sail loft, done up like a holiday flat overlooking the harbour. I like just sitting at the window and watching all the activity. If I’m down there it’s not landscape I’m painting, it’s vague shapes of boats. Painters and fishermen have one world down there”.

This love affair with painting the landscape, produced an astonishing body of work, crafted for seven decades, ranging from sombrely expressive to joyously vibrant. But in every case, whatever Pádraig Mac Miadhacháin did, it was done because he wished to do it and for no other reason than that.

Biographical information taken from 'Re-Inventing the Landscape: Contemporary painters and Dorset' Vivienne Light, 2001, Canterton Books

"Everything goes in through my eyes, it's visual first, probably colour and then the feel of whatever I'm looking at"

LYNCHETTS IN GREY WINTER St Aldhelm’s Head, Purbeck c. 1980's oil on board 23cm x 23cm

PURBECK LANDSCAPE WITH LYNCHETTS c. 1980's oil on linen 75cm x 75cm

FOSSILS IN THE STONE, PURBECK 1982 oil on board 18.5cm x 23.5cm

PURBECK FOSSIL LANDSCAPE St Aldhelm’s Head 1982 oil on board 18.5cm x 23.5cm

UMBER SKY St. Aldhelm's Head, Purbeck 1983 oil on board 23cm x 23cm

(upper left) COLFOX SCHOOL, FROM ART ROOM - I/V/87 pastel and pencil on paper Unframed 21.5cm x 30cm (upper right) COLFOX SCHOOL, FROM ART ROOM - 30/IV/87 - 01 pastel and pencil on paper Unframed 21.5cm x 30cm (right) COLFOX SCHOOL, FROM ART ROOM - 30/IV/87 - 02 pastel and pencil on paper Unframed 21.5cm x 30cm

(upper left) WEST BAY 28/IV/87 charcoal on paper Unframed 21.5cm x 30cm (upper right) WEST BAY 29/IV/87 - 01 pastel and pencil on paper Unframed 21.5cm x 30cm (lower left) WEST BAY 29/IV/87 - 02 pastel and pencil on paper Unframed 21.5cm x 30cm (lower right) WEST BAY 29/IV/87 - 03 pastel and pencil on paper Unframed 21.5cm x 30cm

(upper left) WEST BAY 7/V/87 - 01 pastel and pencil on paper 21.5cm x 30cm (upper right) WEST BAY 7/V/87 - 02 pastel and pencil on paper 21.5cm x 30cm (lower left) WEST BAY 7/V/87 - 03 pastel and pencil on paper 21.5cm x 30cm (lower right) WEST BAY 29/IV/87 - 04 pastel and pencil on paper 21.5cm x 30cm

UNTITLED (HARBOUR AND BOATS - 01) 1987 Oil on board 23cm x 23cm

UNTITLED (HARBOUR AND BOATS - 02) 1987 oil on board 23cm x 23cm

UNTITLED (HARBOUR, LIGHTHOUSE & BOATS - 01) 1988 oil on board 23cm x 23cm

UNTITLED (HARBOUR, LIGHTHOUSE & BOATS - 02) 1988 oil on board 23cm x 23cm

UNTITLED (CHAPEL & COASTGUARD COTTAGES) St Aldhelm’s Head - 01 1989 oil and pencil on board 20cm x 25cm

UNTITLED (CHAPEL & COASTGUARD COTTAGES) St Aldhelm’s Head - 02 1989 oil and pencil on board 20cm x 25cm

DRIFTING AND FLYING St Vincent, 28/XI/89 watercolour on paper 23cm x 31cm

ST VINCENT 29/XI/89 watercolour on paper 23cm x 31cm

THE EDGE OF MYTHS Co. Mayo Series 2006 oil on linen 51cm x 61cm

STANDING IN THE WIND OF TIME II The Mullet, Co Mayo c. 2006 oil on board 22cm x 22cm

RAIN IN THE WEST The Mullet, Co Mayo c. 2006 oil on board 22cm x 22cm

ST ALDHELM’S HEAD WITH CHAPEL Purbeck, Dorset c. 2002 oil on linen 51cm x 61cm

THE HARBOUR 2002 oil on linen 61cm x 61cm

THE INNER HARBOUR II Porthleven, Cornwall 2002 oil on linen 61cm x 61cm

A SHIP OF CALM ON BLUE St. Ives. Cornwall c. 2002 oil on linen 51cm x 61cm

MOORING LINES c. 2002 oil on linen 61m x 61cm

‘I CAN SEE FRANCE FROM HERE’ St Aldhelm’s Head c. 2002 oil on linen 50cm x 60cm

FLYING NEAR THE SUN 2005 oil on linen 25.5cm x 30.5cm

FLYING OVER EARLY SPRING St Ives, Cornwall February 2005 oil on linen 25.5cm x 30.5cm

LATE SUMMER GREEN - PURBECK LANDSCAPE c. 2008 oil on linen 51cm x 61cm

WEST MAN Purbeck, Dorset c. 2008 oil on linen 25.5cm x 30.5cm

Pรกdraig Mac Miadhachรกin Born: Downpatrick, Co Down, N Ireland, 1929 Died: Wareham, Dorset, 2017 Education 1947-1949 1950 1960-1961

Belfast College of Art, Belfast, N Ireland National College of Art, Dublin, Rep of Ireland Akademia Sztuk, Pieknych, Krakow, Poland

Scholarships 1957 Dublin-Moscow Scholarship Sponsored by the Soviet Government 1960 British Council Scholarship to Poland Sponsored by the Polish Government Awards 1991 1992 1993

Winner / LAING National Painting Competition Winner / Daler-Rowney Award, RWA Winner / LAING Regional Painting Competition

Selected One, Two and Three Person Exhibitions 2018

A Life of Painting, Belgrave St Ives, Cornwall

2005

Belgrave Gallery, St Ives, Cornwall

2004/07/08

Mullan Gallery, Belfast, N Ireland

2000/2003

Lena Boyle Fine Art, London (Two exhibitions with Mary Fedden, including Fedden’s Choice)

1999 - 2005

Molesworth Gallery, Dublin (four exhibitions)

1997/2000

New Millennium Gallery, St Ives, Cornwall

1993

Salt House Gallery, St Ives, Cornwall

1990 - 2008

New Academy Gallery. London (ten exhibitions)

1980/85/87

Canning House Gallery, London

1984 Federation of Canadian Artists Gallery Vancouver, Canada 1979

Sala Caraisco, Las Palmas, Canary Islands, Spain

1975/76

Heals Gallery, London

1971/73

Liberty’s Gallery, London

1965/66

Old Town Hall, Reigate

1961

Akademia Sztuk, Pieknych, Krakow, Poland

1960

Queens University, Belfast

1958/59

Woodstock Gallery, London

1958

New Vision Centre, London

1956

Robinson & Cleaver Gallery, Belfast, N Ireland

1955

Instituto de Cultura Hispanica, Madrid, Spain

1953

Capitol Theatre Gallery, Dublin, Rep of Ireland

1951/52/53

Donegall Place Gallery, Belfast, N Ireland

Selected Mixed Exhibitions 1951 - 2017 Royal Ulster Academy of Arts, Belfast, N Ireland, 1951, 1952, 1957,1958 (selected artist in 2006 for the 125th Annual Exhibition) Ulster Group 63 (1963), Belfast and London Irish Exhibition of Living Art, (1963-1965), Dublin, Rep of Ireland Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, Rep of Ireland (invited artist in 2002, 2003 and 2004) Royal Academy of Art, London (exhibited 20 times in the Summer Exhibition) Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, Glasgow, Scotland Royal West of England Gallery, Bristol Southampton Gallery of Modern Art, Southampton, 1958 Russell-Cotes Museum, Bournemouth, 2004 Salon International de L'Art Libre, Paris, France, 1958 Gorky Park Galleries, Moscow, USSR, 1957 Open Painting Competition, Arts Council, Belfast, N Ireland, 1962 Discerning Eye (1992/1997*/2003), London (*selected by HRH Prince of Wales) C.A.S. 1992/93/94/95/96, London Hunting Prize Exhibition, London Art 1995/96/97/98, London Boyle Arts Festival, Boyle, Co Rosscommon, 2010 Additions, 2005, The National Self-Portrait Collection of Ireland, University of Limerick Currents, An exhibition of recent acquisitions from the Department of Finace, N Ireland, in association with the Office of Public Works, Rep of Ireland, 2004 The Space Between, An exhibition of selected works from the Department of Finace, N Ireland, in association with the Office of Public Works, Rep of Ireland, 2017-2018 The Design Centre, London New Art Centre, London Tom Caldwell Galleries, Belfast and London Art Gallery and Museums, Brighton

On Line Gallery, Southampton The Guildhall Gallery, Winchester New Academy Gallery, London Gordon Hepworth Gallery, Newton St Cyres, Devon New Craftsman, St Ives, Cornwall Newlyn Art Gallery, Newlyn, Cornwall Belgrave St Ives, St Ives, Cornwall Cadogan Contemporary, London Adam Gallery, Bath Crane Kalman, London Beaux Arts, Bath Thompson's, The City Art Gallery, London / Cornish Exhibition, 2002/2004 Mullan Gallery, Belfast, N Ireland Ulster Group 63 / 40th Anniversary Show 2003, Mullan Gallery, Belfast, N Ireland Selected Collections The National Self-Portrait Collection of Ireland The Arts Council of Ireland Boyle Civic Art Collection David Whitehead 'Living Art' Collection Office of Public Works, Ireland Hertford College, Oxford Sussex University Caja Insular de Ahorros de Gran Canaria Escuela de Bellas Artes (Las Palmas), Gran Canaria Irish Allied Bank The Bank of China SG Warburg Kobe Steel Sun Oil International, US

Pádraig Mac Miadhacháin A West Country Retrospective Price List LYNCHETTS IN GREY WINTER

NFS

UNTITLED (HARBOUR, LIGHTHOUSE & BOATS - 01)

£850

PURBECK LANDSCAPE WITH LYNCHETTS

NFS

UNTITLED (HARBOUR, LIGHTHOUSE & BOATS - 02)

£850

FOSSILS IN THE STONE, PURBECK

£850

UNTITLED (CHAPEL & COASTGUARD COTTAGES - 01)

£900

PURBECK FOSSIL LANDSCAPE

£850

UNTITLED (CHAPEL & COASTGUARD COTTAGES - 02)

£900

UMBER SKY

£900

DRIFTING AND FLYING 28/XI/89

£650

COLFOX SCHOOL, FROM ART ROOM - I/V/87

£495

ST VINCENT 29/XI/89

£650

COLFOX SCHOOL, FROM ART ROOM - 30/IV/87 - 01

£495

THE EDGE OF MYTHS

£4,000

COLFOX SCHOOL, FROM ART ROOM - 30/IV/87 - 02

£495

STANDING IN THE WIND OF TIME II

£900

WEST BAY 28/IV/87

£495

RAIN IN THE WEST

£900

WEST BAY 29/IV/87 - 01

£495

ST ALDHELM’S HEAD WITH CHAPEL

£4,000

WEST BAY 29/IV/87 - 02

£495

THE HARBOUR

£4,000

WEST BAY 29/IV/87 - 03

£495

THE INNER HARBOUR II

£4,000

WEST BAY 7/V/87 - 01

£575

A SHIP OF CALM ON BLUE

£4,000

WEST BAY 7/V/87 - 02

£575

MOORING LINES

£4,000

WEST BAY 7/V/87 - 03

£575

‘I CAN SEE FRANCE FROM HERE’

NFS

WEST BAY 29/IV/87 - 04

£575

FLYING NEAR THE SUN

£1,100

UNTITLED (HARBOUR AND BOATS - 01)

£850

FLYING OVER EARLY SPRING

£1,100

UNTITLED (HARBOUR AND BOATS - 02)

£850

LATE SUMMER GREEN - PURBECK LANDSCAPE

£4,000

WEST MAN

£1,000