I
rish
& I
nternational
A
rt
A
uction
M
onday
5
th
D
ecember
2016
at
6.00
pm
95
102 Tony O’Malley HRHA (1913-2003) Piazza Studios (1962)signed, titled & dated 1962 lower right & artist’s archive no: 2827 on reverse
oil on paper
88.75 x 58cm (36 x 23in)
Provenance:
Taylor Galleries, Dublin (label verso)
Private Collection
Exhibited:
Taylor Galleries, Dublin November 2002 catalogue No.29
€8,000-12,000 (£6,956-10,434)
Tony O’Malley was born in Callan, Co.Kilkenny in 1913 and was a self-taught artist, having drawn and painted for pleasure from
childhood. He worked as a bank officìal until contracting tuberculosis in the 1940s. He began painting in earnest while convalescing
and, though he did at first return to bank work, he continued to paint and in 1951 began exhibiting his work. O’Malley first visited
St. Ives, Cornwall in 1955, then an important center of abstract art before settling there in 1960. The simplicity and formal mastery of
O’Malley’s constructions reflect the modernist tradition of assemblage that stretches back to Pablo Picasso and to Kurt Schwitters,
artists he admired. Some of his contemporaries in St Ives, like Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth and Peter Lanyon were also
drawn to the medium of collage and assemblage. Drawing was the necessary root of all of O’Malley’s work and concisely knotted
the mediums together. A highly respected artist, his works are represented in all major Irish museums and included in the most
significant public and private collections of Irish art.