Maurice MacGonigal PRHA (1900-1979)
Kilmainham Jail No.2. The Execution Chamber (1960)
Oil on board, 60 x 50cm (23¾ x 19¾'')
Signed

Exhibited: An tOireachtas Taispeántas Ealaíne 1962 Cat...

Maurice MacGonigal PRHA (1900-1979)
Kilmainham Jail No.2. The Execution Chamber (1960)
Oil on board, 60 x 50cm (23¾ x 19¾'')
Signed

Exhibited: An tOireachtas Taispeántas Ealaíne 1962 Cat No.78 where it was awarded the Douglas Hyde/Arts Council Gold Medal for an historical subject.
RHA Annual Exhibition 1962; Cat. no.20.

 

A Member of "G" coy, 4th.Batt IRA (Dublin) the artist was arrested on December 8th 1920, and after identification by the Military Authorities and a beating he was hospitalised in the Military Hospital (now St.Brícins) moved to Richmond Barracks, then Kilmainham Gaol before being moved to Ballykinlar internment camp in Northern Ireland. Many of his works of the internment period survive in the State Collections. In all the records of the time and the great book of Ballykinlar he is referred to as "McGonigal the artist". Released at the Truce he returned to the family stained glass business of his cousin Harry Clarke where he became a junior partner.

The artist was asked by the chairman of the Kilmainham Gaol Restoration Committee Seán Dowling who had been his commanding officer in "C" & "G" Coys of the IRA to do a number of on site works prior to restoration commencing.

 

The subject shows Kilmainham Gaol before it's restoration and in this work a figure is seen approaching the steps to the execution chamber built up against the bulwark of the main building, and to the left of the figure can be seen the red painted half door through which the bodies of the hanged were removed into the smaller exercise yard before burial within the Gaol walls.

 

The painting is in the light toned palette range which the artist favoured with flickering highlights and the use of Cobalt, Scarlet Lake, Alizarin and Titanium White as pigments gives an air of movement even with static buildings and the device of the figure gives the sense of proportion to the huge scale and towering nature of the site of the Gaol which looks over the surrounding landscape of Inchicore and Kilmainham. Although part of a group of works based on and in the Gaol, the artist regarded this work as being of pictorial and painterly significance which is why he exhibited it in the Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts Annual Exhibition of which he was President at that time.

 

Ciarán MacGonigal

 

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