Lot No: 43

Tony O'Malley HRHA (1913-2003)

SPECTRAL GARDEN, BAHAMAS, 1987

Published Estimate: €25000-35000
Price Realised: €38000

signed and dated lower left; also with archival number [No. 1347] on reverse; also signed 'Antoine O Maille' on reverse; with Taylor Galleries exhibition label on reverse
oil on board
89 by 122cm., 35 by 48in.
Provenance:Taylor Galleries, Dublin


In 1973 Tony O’Malley married Jane Harris whose family was from the Bahamas. From 1973 to 1987 the couple travelled to the island working there during the winter months. The Caribbean light and the island’s colours had an enormous impact on the artist’s palette. This radically different environment charged O’Malley’s canvases with a buoyancy and lightness which extended to a renewed interpretation of both his Irish landscapes and those of the Canary Islands and Scilly Isles. The Bahamian works were also hugely important in terms of his career development and opened doors to commercial galleries in Ireland and abroad. In 1989 the artist was made an Honorary member of the Royal Hibernian Academy and won the Guardian Art Critic’s award for painting, Newlyn Contemporaries Exhibition, Newlyn Society of Artists as well as the Irish American Cultural Award for painting. By 1990 Jane and Tony O’Malley had returned to Ireland to settle permanently near the artist’s birthplace in Callan, County Kilkenny.