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Patrick Collins HRHA (1910-1994)
GYPSY CAMP
oil on board
signed lower right; titled on reverse
25 x 39in. (63_ x 99.06cm)
Patrick Collins first used the theme of Travellers or Tinkers in 1957 and the motif appeared again later in the late 1960s
when it dominated his subject matter for a period of three years. (1) In Gypsy Camp, through a haze of mist and
moonlight, the figures of two horses, a fire and a dark mass representing the camp emerge framed within a frame; a
characteristic device favoured by Collins. Gypsy Camp is dissolved into indistinct shapes and the gentle tonal palette is
pleasing on the eye. Frances Ruane has suggested that these paintings grow, ….not out of direct observation, but more
likely from the artist’s recollection of the gypsy camp between the Collins family house and the Cranmore Prison which
had a romantic appeal for him as a young boy in Sligo.” (2)The framing device reinforces the feeling separation from
the real world and gives an ethereal quality to the work. The palette is deceptively rich and comprises wonderful blues,
greens, pinks and browns with a dash of red suggesting the camp fire. Footnotes:(1) Ruane, Frances, Patrick Collins, An
Chomhairle Ealaíon/The Arts Council, Dublin; The Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Belfast, 1982, p.52(2) Ruane, Frances,
Whyte’s 28 April 2008, lot 57 [Tinker Woman And Child, 1961]”
€8000-€12000 (£5760-£8640 approx.)
Large Image & Place Bid Lot 42IMPORTANT IRISH ART · 30 November 2015