Tom Carr ARHA HRUA ARWS (1909-1999)

Portrait of the Artist T.P. Flanagan

Oil on canvas laid on board, 31.5 x 21.5 (12½ x 8½)

Signed

 

Provenance: The Eamonn Mallie Collection, purchased at...

Tom Carr ARHA HRUA ARWS (1909-1999)

Portrait of the Artist T.P. Flanagan

Oil on canvas laid on board, 31.5 x 21.5 (12½ x 8½)

Signed

 

Provenance: The Eamonn Mallie Collection, purchased at the Arches Gallery, Belfast.

 

Tom Carr, a South Belfast man was almost two decades older than Fermanagh born artist Terry Flanagan, familiarly known as TP Flanagan. Both men shared a mutual respect for each other's work, both being water-colourists with oils beings more of an obsession as emerging painters. Carr was sent to England for his education in Oundle in Northamptonshire and then he made his way to the Slade College of Art in London.

 

The present portrait is proof positive of Carr's empathy and familiarity with his sitter Terry Flanagan, a gentle soul. While this is not a big head of Flanagan it provides adequate space for Carr to demonstrate his scholarship with insouciance in the execution of his task. By the time Carr got around to painting Flanagan, Terry was already a very familiar figure not just in art circles but as a distinguished lecturer in one of Belfast's leading teacher training colleges and as a regular exponent of the virtues and merits of sculptor FE McWilliam and fellow Fermanagh artist William Scott, both personal friends. This portrait of TP Flanagan was partnered at one stage by a portrait of his wife Sheelagh - that painting rests with the Flanagan family.

 

I became acquainted with Carr's portrait of TP in the Arches Art Gallery in East Belfast about fifteen years ago and through knowing Carr and Flanagan I had an instant empathy with the work and I bought it. I always enjoyed the warm glow issuing from the gentle colours - a hallmark of Carr's painting. The painting in its own right is of historical relevance because Flanagan would have influenced possibly thousands of art students over the decades. The fact too that Tom Carr's hand is behind the portrait is also significant. Carr won the gold medal for his work in the Slade. He fell under the spell of Professor Henry Tonks. Tonks is a familiar figure in collections in museums such as 'The Ashmolean' in Oxford. While Tom Carr trained in the very forensic manner of Tonks in the 'drawing room' at the Slade he ultimately gravitated towards the more comprehensive open style of Walter Sickert who was more preoccupied with placing a sitter or an object in a setting which blended into its environment as opposed to being the total focus of the painting.

Eamonn Mallie

 

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