Gerard Dillon, Irish, 1916-1971
Title: The Little Green Fields
Date: c.1946-1950
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
40.5 x 89 cm
Signed: centre: Gerard Dillon
Credit Line: Bequeathed, Máire MacNeill Sweeney, 1987
Object Number: NGI.4520
DescriptionDillon spent much of the 1930s working in London as a house painter. The outbreak of the Second World War left him stranded during a visit home to Belfast, however, and he moved to Dublin shortly afterwards. There he became an enthusiastic member of a vibrant community of Irish and foreign artists. He made his first of many visits to the west of Ireland in 1939. He was inspired by the rugged and beautiful landscape of Connemara and the simple lifestyle of its inhabitants. The pace and quality of life appealed to Dillon, though he thought of himself very much as an outsider. In this flat, strongly patterned composition, he brings together motifs associated with the western seaboard and its people: the dry-stone walls demarcating plots; the thatched cottages; the ponies; the labour on the land. An old graveyard symbolises both religious devotion and the habitation of the land over generations. A dolmen, a relief sculpture of a monk, the ruins of an abbey, and a high cross, meanwhile, refer to the region’s Celtic and early-Christian past.
The deliberately naïve quality of the painting, which subverts traditional notions of scale, modelling and perspective, and relies on bold outlines and simplified forms, connects the subject stylistically with early-Christian Irish design and is typical of Dillon’s work of this period.
March 2016
The deliberately naïve quality of the painting, which subverts traditional notions of scale, modelling and perspective, and relies on bold outlines and simplified forms, connects the subject stylistically with early-Christian Irish design and is typical of Dillon’s work of this period.
March 2016
ProvenanceBequeathed, Máire MacNeill Sweeney, 1987
Exhibition HistoryA Personal Choice, Belltable Arts Centre, Limerick, 1981
Acquisitions 1986-1988, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 1988
Lines of Vision. Irish Writers at the National Gallery of Ireland, 8 October 2014 —12 April 2015
Oidhreacht: Transforming Tradition, Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda, 13 June 2019 - 14 September 2019
Acquisitions 1986-1988, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 1988
Lines of Vision. Irish Writers at the National Gallery of Ireland, 8 October 2014 —12 April 2015
Oidhreacht: Transforming Tradition, Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda, 13 June 2019 - 14 September 2019
Label TextDillon made the first of his many visits to the west of Ireland in 1939. He was inspired by the rugged and beautiful landscape of Connemara and the simple lifestyle of its inhabitants. In this flat, strongly patterned composition, Dillon brings together motifs associated with the western seaboard and its people: dry-stone walls; thatched cottages; ponies; labour on the land. An old graveyard symbolises both religious devotion and the habitation of the land over generations. A dolmen, a relief sculpture of a monk, the ruins of an abbey, and a high cross, meanwhile, refer to the region’s Celtic and early Christian past.