Tony O'Malley RHA (1913-2003) Garden Imression Paradise Island,Bahamas 1981 Oil on canvas, 152.5 x 122 cm, (60 x 48'') Signed, Inscribed and dated verso Provenance: The McClelland Collection. ...

Tony O'Malley RHA (1913-2003) Garden Imression Paradise Island,Bahamas 1981 Oil on canvas, 152.5 x 122 cm, (60 x 48'') Signed, Inscribed and dated verso Provenance: The McClelland Collection. Largely a self taught artist O'Malley admired the french painters Paul Cezanne, Henri Matisse and George Braque, the Post Impressionist Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Klee, Naum Gabo, and the American painter Mark Rothko. From the 1960's O'Malley's work was becoming increasingly abstract, although he continued to draw and paint from nature his work became a poetic expression that was intimately personal. He never saw his work as abstract : '' I would rather use the word non-objective. Abstraction for its own sake wasn't part of my mental equipment at all?the painting had to look at you and demand something of you, that you weren't imposing-the ''drawing out'' of something, I don't know how I could describe it.' In essence O'Malley was an astue observer of contemporary life. O'Malley's first trip to the Bahamas was in 1973 with his wife Jane who had family there. Dazzled by the white beaches, palm trees and brightly coloured foliage, O'Malley made annual winter visits there and embarked on a series of paintings of the Bahamas rarely using the colour black. Garden Impression, Bahamas might have been inspired from one of his many trips exploring the lesser well known parts of the island. Bright paint of various colours is swiftly applied to a white canvas, shapes forming, rows of flowers, a dazzling path -an impression, perhaps from O'Malley's subconsious or a moment in time. O'Malley said '' for the first time I put down colours for the sake of colour, because I was trying to realise the colours of the place.'' In 1990, Tony and Jane O'Malley moved back to Ireland permanently. They built a studio at the end of the garden in Physianstown, and when Hilary Pyle interviewed him in 1998, she described the gardens; ''The day was filled with light and warmth like one of his recent Bahamas pictures.'' O'Malley responded to different enviroments with different colour palette. Muted dark coloures related to Cornwall and Ireland, warmer and more vibrant colours to Bahamas or Lanzarote.

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