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Nick Miller , English, b.1962

Title

Last Sitting: Portrait of Barrie Cooke

Date2014

MediumOil on linen

Dimensions

61 x 56 cm

Signedlower right: NICK MILLER

Credit LinePurchased, 2015

Object numberNGI.2015.17

ProvenancePurchased, the Artist, 2015Exhibition HistoryHennessy Portrait Prize, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 2014
Label TextThis portrait of artist Barrie Cooke was the winning entry for the inaugural Hennessy Portrait Prize at the National Gallery of Ireland in 2014. It was painted in one sitting in Miller’s studio shortly before Cooke left Co. Sligo due to ill-health. The artist and sitter were friends and neighbours for many years, and both were aware of the significance of the sitting. ‘There was an urgency to the encounter and to the work’, Miller wrote. ‘His spirits lifted for that last day in my Sligo studio and he reflected on the odd lives of painters’.