Thomas Ryan

Thomas Ryan was a painter, designer, and medallist. Born in Limerick in 1929, as a child he demonstrated great interest in drawing. This was encouraged and at the age of fourteen, Ryan was granted permission by the Christian Brothers to leave school early so that he could attend evening drawing classes at the Limerick School of Art. Upon finishing school, he enrolled full-time at the Limerick School of Art, where he studied for three years under the tuition of Richard Butler. In 1947 he won a scholarship to study painting at the National College of Art, Dublin (NCAD), where he was taught by Sean Keating (1889-1977) and Maurice MacGonigal (1900-1979). Upon graduating, Ryan worked as an art teacher at both Limerick School of Art and NCAD. In the 1950s, Ryan travelled widely around Europe in order to paint and visit art collections. Ryan painted in a traditional, realist style during a period when academic art was marginalised in favour of modernism. He used conventional materials such as oils, watercolours, and red chalk, and worked across a range of genres, including portraiture, landscape, still life and history painting – a genre which was becoming increasingly rare. Ryan’s range of subject matter was in part due to his realisation that artists who wished to make a living from their work needed to diversify their output. Indeed, Ryan did have commercial success as an artist and commissions to paint the portraits of high-profile figures such as Taoisigh, presidents, members of clergy, and university presidents attest to this. Ryan first exhibited at the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1957 and exhibited annually thereafter. He became an associate member in 1968, was elected a constituent member in 1973, and served as president (PRHA) from 1982 to 1992. Ryan also became an honorary member of the Royal Academy in London and the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh; a governor of the National Gallery of Ireland; an associate of NCAD; a founder member or the European Council of the National Academies of Fine Art in Madrid; and a board member of the stamp committee at An Post. Ryan lived and worked for most of his life in Ashbourne, County Meath, where he continued to paint until his death in 2021.