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Thomas Ryan PPRHA (b.1929)
DOUGLAS HYDE - PRESIDENT OF IRELAND, 1965
oil on canvas
signed and dated lower right lower right; with plaque detailing sitter, artist and date affixed to frame lower centre
49.5 by 41.5in. (152 by 126.5 cm)
Provenance:
Commissioned on 5 May, 1965;
The Collection of The Irish Club, London;
The Irish Cultural Centre, Hammersmith
Of his portraits, several of which he exhibited in the RHA, the artist comments as follows in Thomas Ryan – oil paintings,
Nicholson & Bass Ltd., 2009, p. 175
”I have drawn portraits since I was a boy. First of my father, mother and siblings then, as a student at the Limerick
School of Art, preparatory drawings from casts of classical heads and of their parts, lips, mouths and ears. Afterwards at
the National College of Art we, as students, painted from live models; heads in the morning, the fgure in the
afternoon. This training was the basis for my practice as a fgure painter and, more particularly so, in my work as a
portraitist. Over the years my subjects have come by way of choice, chance and commission… I have drawn and
painted portraits of all ages and of all vocations, or none, from children to octogenarians, from Presidents and Cardinals
to friends…”
This work was a private commission and hung on the walls of the Irish Club at Eaton Square, London.
We are grateful to the artist for his assistance with cataloguing this lot.
€5,000-€7,000 (£4,098-£5,737 approx).