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Seán Keating PRHA HRA HRSA (1889-1977)
A STUDY OF DUSTMAN REILLY FOR THE KEY MEN, c.1958-1960
oil on canvas
signed lower right
17¼ x 17½in. (43.82 x 44.45cm)
The painting for which Study of Dustman Reilly was made was originally entitled Dei Ex Machina, (The Miracle Workers),
but is now better-known as The Key Men. It was commissioned as a gift for Felix Hackett, then Professor of Physics
and Electrical Engineering at UCD, in 1958, and presented in 1960. The model in this study is known as Dustman Reilly
because he worked as a bin man around Dublin city. However, Dustman Reilly was also the chairman of the George
Bernard Shaw branch of the Irish Labour Party in Dublin. On the occasion of Shaw’s ninetieth birthday that branch of the
Labour Party sent him, via their chairman, a golden shamrock, which the writer duly attached to his belt. It was for this
reason that Dustman Reilly also became known as the ‘Golden Dustman’.
Seán Keating was continually interested in the ability of the Irish people to run the country, whether as sports stars, civil
servants, firefighters, or indeed, dustmen. When the commission came for The Key Men the artist used the recently-
built dam at Poulaphouca as the backdrop to the painting, and then sought models for the work that might add to his
intended meaning, evident in the title of the work. At that time the artist, as President of the RHA, was on the Board
of Trustees of the National Gallery of Ireland. The gallery was, and is, in possession of a life-size bronze sculpture of
George Bernard Shaw by Prince Troubetzkoy. There was some discussion between the Board of Trustees of the National
Gallery of Ireland and the George Bernard Shaw branch of the Labour Party about the placement of the sculpture, and
it was through these negotiations that Keating got to know Dustman Reilly. As an ordinary citizen, a dustman, and also
chairman of a branch of the Labour Party, Dustman Reilly was an ideal model, indeed, role model, whose presence
added a further level of allegorical meaning to The Key Men.
A native of Richmond Place in Dublin, and something of a character, palpable in Keating’s Study of Dustman Reilly, the
well-known dustman and chairman found local fame after his appearance in The Key Men. Full of humour, he wrote to
Keating to say that prior to his modelling debut he only had one or two relatives, and they wouldn’t speak to him! But
now, as a direct result of his celebrity, he had fifty or more, and not a penny among them! ‘Intimidated I am’, he wrote,
‘and no one to blame only you, Seán Keating - yes you!’ (1)
Dr Éimear O’Connor HRHA
January 2016
Author of Seán Keating, Art, Politics, and Building the Irish Nation (Irish Academic Press: Kildare, 2013)
1.Undated letter from Reilly to Keating, private collection
€20000-€30000 (£15200-£21600 approx.)
Large Image & Place Bid Lot 39