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WHYTESS I N C E 1 7 8 3
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Barrie Cooke HRHA ( b.1931)
DIDYMO, N.Z.I., 2006
oil on canvas
signed, titled, dated and with artist’s archival number [BC28506] on
reverse; with typed Kerlin Gallery exhibition label also on reverse
27.50 by 33.50in. (69.85 by 85.09cm)
Provenance:
Kerlin Gallery, Dublin;
Private collection
Exhibited:
‘Barrie Cooke’, Kerlin Gallery, Dublin, 5 May -
3 June 2006
The Kerlin exhibition in 2006 marked the artist’s 75th birthday and
featured several reoccurring themes in his oeuvre. The present work
represent his preoccupation with water pollution and an algae called
Didymosphenia geminata discovered in New Zealand in 2004.
€3,000-€4,000 (£2,459-£3,278 approx).
37
Patrick Collins HRHA (1910-1994)
THE PENITENT THIEF, 1988
oil on canvas
signed and dated lower centre; with inscribed Caldwell Galleries
label on reverse
30 by 25in. (76.20 by 63.50cm)
Provenance:
Caldwell Galleries;
Whence purchased by Vincent Ferguson;
Private collection
Exhibited:
‘Patrick Collins’, Caldwell Galleries, Dublin, until 30 November
1989, no. 6; ‘Patrick Collins’, Clifford Street Fine Art, London, 6
February to 3 March 1990 (illustrated on front cover of exhibition
catalogue & backcover of private viewing invite); ‘Patrick Collins
HRHA, Last Daylight, the late cut-out paintings of Patrick Collins’,
RHA, Dublin,
14 January – 27 March 2011 (illustrated p.22 of exhibition
catalogue)
The recent RHA exhibition of Collins’ ‘cut outs’ in 2011 brought into
focus this controversial series from the mid-eighties. While these
works show the artist employing a new technique, the brutal
cutting of canvas with a scissors, they tie in with his earlier
preoccupation of relating the painted image to the edge of the
picture plane. For earlier works by the artist see lots 6 and 9.
”Someone once asked me why didn’t I teach – pass on my
experience to somebody else? In reply, I said I would have to start
by saying, I can teach you nothing because I know nothing and
that’s after a lifetime of working for artistic completion, reading,
writing, researching, discussing and observing. I broke all the rules in
an efort to get at the truth of something and landed back on my
own two feet with the conclusion that nobody else knows anything
either. So there are no teachers, no pundits, only yourself.
I started by trying to wed the thing and some hidden meaning of it
and instinctively demanding a shape that overall accommodated
both. Now I’ve arrived at a logical development of this idea with the
blanks substituting or suggesting what I didn’t know.”
Patrick Collins, from the exhibition catalogue to his solo show at the
Caldwell Galleries, Dublin, November, 1989
€3,000-€4,000 (£2,459-£3,278 approx).