WHYTE'S IMPORTANT IRISH ART 28 NOVEMBER 2016

Tony O’Malley HRHA (1913-2003)

MORNING FLIGHT, PARADISE ISLAND, BAHAMAS, 1980

acrylic on canvas

signed with initials lower left; signed in English and Irish on reverse; titled,

dated [1/1980] and numbered [247 & R265] on reverse

48 by 36in. (121.92 by 91.44cm)

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. Intimate and reflective, many of the works by O’Malley from the

McClelland collection are of museum quality.

Vera Ryan

(1) The Hunter Gatherer - The Collection of George and Maura McClelland, The Irish Museum of Modern Art,

Dublin, 2004

€15,000-€20,000 (£13,640-£18,180 approx.)