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Rowland Davidson (b.1942) LOCAL FEIS signed lower left oil on board 102 by 127cm., 40 by 50in. Da...

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Rowland Davidson (b.1942) LOCAL FEIS signed lower left oil on board 102 by 127cm., 40 by 50in. Da...
Rowland Davidson (b.1942)
LOCAL FEIS
signed lower left
oil on board
102 by 127cm., 40 by 50in.
Davidson graduated from the Belfast College of Art in 1967 and exhibited shortly
afterwards with the New Gallery, Belfast. As head of the art department in a
secondary school, he had little time to devote to his own work. However, since
1987, he has painted professionally, exhibiting regularly with the RUA and
various Northern Irish galleries where his figurative works have a strong
following.
€4,000-€6,000 (£2,700-£4,000 sterling approx.)
Seán Ó Seadhacháin (1901-1991)
Seán Ó Seadhacháin was born in Ashford, Co. Limerick in 1901. Painting was just
one of many varied interests in his long life which included teaching, pharmacy,
carpentry, folklore, music and botany; however, it wasn’t until 1961 that he
took to painting, without any previous training. From a very early age he showed
a passionate interest in the Irish language and continued to practice and teach
his native language when he emigrated to the USA in 1927 and became a registered
pharmacist. Whilst running a small chemist in Washington with his wife Mary, he
held the Chair in Gaelic Studies at the Catholic University in Washington and
taught Irish during evenings at Roosevelt High School. Having painted tropical
murals with flamingos and monkeys on the walls of his chemist to brighten the
shop, customers urged him to continue with his new found talent. He began a
series of paintings based on Irish rural life and scenes from his childhood in
Co. Limerick some of which we see here. Over the years the scenes included
Quilting; Churning Indoors; Tasting the Buttermilk; Basketry and Sieving. He
also carved and decorated his own frames which became an extension of the
paintings. His naïve style is reminiscent of the Tory Island school of painters
in the way he has a strong compositional sense with tilted perspective. Having
returned to Ireland in 1968, he held his first one-man show in 1980 at 41
Washington Street, Cork, where he showed 145 works. After his death in 1991,
West Cork Arts Centre hosted an exhibition of 48 works in 1994. A collection of
slides of his husbandry paintings is now in the archives of the National Gallery
of Ireland and Muckross House, Killarney.
(See Snoddy, pp. 508-509)