Tony O'Malley RHA (1913-2003)
The Windhover
Oil on board, 91.5 x 122cm (36 x 48'')
Signed with initials and dated (19) '85
Signed and inscribed and dated 1985 verso
Provenance: With...

Tony O'Malley RHA (1913-2003)
The Windhover
Oil on board, 91.5 x 122cm (36 x 48'')
Signed with initials and dated (19) '85
Signed and inscribed and dated 1985 verso
Provenance: With Taylor Galleries, Dublin, label verso

'Windhover (1985)' is a lyrical representation of a subject that continuously fed O'Malley's artworks. Realising his artistic inclination relatively late in life, O'Malley turned to painting as a way to pass his convalescence when he contracted pleurisy and pneumonia in 1940. Perhaps because his illness kept him confined, O'Malley was drawn to the natural world and, in particular, birds of prey.

Working as a banker, O'Malley was stationed in Arklow in the 1950s. Buying his first car, he spent his weekends driving through Wicklow and Kilkenny, sketching the world that he saw. Encouraged by what he was accomplishing, O'Malley travelled to St. Ives in 1955 and partook in a three-week painting course. Here, he encountered the peace and acceptance that his life in Ireland was lacking. A self-taught artist, his work did not fit into the ideals of rural Ireland, nor did it lend itself to the Dublin School of teaching. O'Malley was an outcast in his country but, in St. Ives, he found a community of kindred spirits.

In 1960, O'Malley left the narrow mindedness of Ireland behind and moved to St. Ives. He gave full reign to his artistic expression, adopting a philosophy greatly influenced by the Japanese idea of 'shibui'. In this, beauty was to be perceived in the unfinished and the imperfect. O'Malley allowed his pieces to be impressions of the emotions evoked by his subjects. He rejected the term 'abstract' and instead described his oeuvre as 'non-objective' and 'non-figurative'.

The birds of prey combine O'Malley's admiration for nature with his search for physical and expressive freedom. Known in Irish as a 'pocaire gaoithe' or 'wind-frolicker', the kestrel is the epitome of this.

By disrupting the form of the windhover, O'Malley allows our eye to dance along the canvas, as if we, too, are twirling through the air. We are tossed from fragment to fragment, buffeted by changes in tone and colour. Alive with movement, the canvas fills us with exhilaration. We soar with the bird and, for a brief moment, leave human cares behind. We do not cast thoughts for the future or ponder the consequences of our actions. We live in the moment, filled only with the primal drive to survive.

Helena Carlyle, 2020

 

 

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