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The McClelland Collection
53
Tony O’Malley HRHA (1913-2003)
MORNING LIGHT II, PARADISE ISLAND, BAHAMAS, 1982
acrylic on canvas
signed with initials and dated [1/82] lower left; signed in English and Irish, titled, dated [1/1982] and
numbered [R264 and 268] on reverse
48 x 72in. (121.92 x 182.88cm)
Provenance:
Collection of George and Maura McClelland
Tony O’Malley’s work came to the attention of art lovers in Ireland comparatively late in the artist’s life. He
spent the 1960s painting in Cornwall, absorbing the prevailing aesthetic of abstraction to his own ends.
He did exhibit, but much work remained unsold. His creative harvest from the 1970s was magnificent.
Marriage to Jane Harris in 1973 led to winters in the Bahamas, where he began painting outdoors on
canvas. Sales however remained sporadic. O’Malley’s life changed when Northern artists, F. E. Mc William
andWilliam Scott, introduced him to Belfast dealer, gallerist and collector, George McClelland in 1979 or
80. In the few but effective years during which he promoted O’Malley’s work, George himself acquired
a number of fine works. Some were loaned to the Irish Museum of Modern Art and later donated. (1)
Others stayed in the family until now.
.
In Cottage, St Martins, 1972 (lot 66) a figurative work, O’Malley explores the possibilities of French
modernism. In Jerpoint, 1977 (lot 68) O’Malley’s palette is strong and dark and his shapes highly stylised.
This dynamic works well as a response to the Abbey’s carved figures eroded over time. The energy of the
contours suggests the vital imaginative presence to the artist of these figures from the past.
The McClelland collection included some experimental works by O’Malley. The tactile quality of the wool
in the tapestries communicates a different but interesting atmosphere to the paintings. October and
Black, 1983 (lot 60), woven by Terry Dunne in Wexford, is in fact a very blue work, the intensity of the
royal blue recalling stained glass. It attests to O’Malley’s abiding interest in the medieval.
The superb Night Painter, 1981 (lot 57) is in the tradition of the tall, rectangular works on board in which
the artist explores the interior/exterior. Strong, irregular shapes provide the framework for the textured
treatment of the surface. Verdigris greens billow around the predominant slate grey rectangle which
signifies night. Incised marks reflect the resistance of the board and allow the paint to achieve a variety of
effects. Abstracted in form, a small white curtain is tentatively anchored by a red spot. Perhaps there is a
suggestion of a tiny self-portrait in one of the richly patterned, rhythmic panels below.
Travelling to the Bahamas by plane made canvas the easiest support to manage. A sense of lightness and
loveliness characterises Morning Light II, Paradise Island, Bahamas, 1982 (the present lot, 53) a painting
at once abstract and based in the real world. In this serene and luminous work, the artist risks using the
softest of colours; baby blue and pinks and lemony yellows. He characteristically divides the painting
with a central linear spine, creating an open book or butterfly on the wing format. Space on the left is
more recessive and still than on the right, where brushstrokes on the blue suggest a flurry of bird life. A
feeling of reverence and joy is expressed.
Intimate and reflective, many of these works by O’Malley from the Mc Clelland collection are of museum
quality.
Vera Ryan
August 2016