As James White pointed out in his book Gerard Dillon: An Illustrated Biography, Dillon used Pierrot as an alter ego. The clowns Pierrot and Harlequin are popular tropes in art history. During the eighteenth century they appeared in the works of French and Italian painters including Watteau and Tiepolo, where they referenced the Commedia dell’Arte theatre tradition. In the first decades of the twentieth century both Pierrot and Harlequin were adopted by Modernists including Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and Juan Gris whose Pierrot (1921) was among the paintings donated to the National Gallery of Ireland by Marie MacNeill Sweeney. Both in his origins in the Commedia dell’Arte and in his reinvention as a Modernist trope, Pierrot was associated with disguised identity, melancholia and gender confusion.

One of Dillon’s first paintings to include Pierrot is The Brothers (c.1965) which depicts the clown crying over a grave where three skeletons are visible. White argues that the skeletons represent Dillon’s three brothers all of whom had recently died young from heart complaints. In this reading Pierrot is the artist mourning his brothers and fearing that he will soon follow them to an early grave. Sadly, Dillon’s prediction was correct and he died from a heart related illness in 1971 when he was only fifty-five years old. During the last years of his life, which were spent in Dublin, Dillon painted a series of images of Pierrot often in imaginary landscapes. Through these works he often commented on issues, including politics, religion and sexuality, that the conservative nature of Irish culture made it difficult to address directly.

In Magic in the Sky, the three silhouetted figures may represent Dillon’s three dead brothers watching the insubstantial figure of Pierrot floating through the sky above. Whether the landscape they inhabit represents heaven or some sort of limbo is unclear. In either case the imagery does not follow any conventional religious doctrine and certainly not the teachings of the Catholic Church in which Dillon was raised. Despite the melancholy subject matter of the Pierrot paintings, the images are imbued with a sense of serenity that suggests Dillon had come to terms with his fate. In one of his last paintings, Self-Portrait with Pierrot and Nude painted in 1971 (National Gallery of Ireland) Dillon presents a candid image of his features with Pierrot and a stack of canvases in the background. Perhaps the only image where both artist and alter ego appear together, this painting can be interpreted as a record of Dillon’s acceptance of his own mortality.

Dr Riann Coulter

April, 2010

Dr. Coulter was curator of ‘Nano Reid and Gerard Dillon’, Highlanes Municipal Gallery, Drogheda and F.E. McWilliam Gallery and Studio, Banbridge 30 January- 2 May 2010

Around 1978 Collins’ paintings entered a more robust stage, with bold calligraphic strokes of paint giving strong definition to the surface. Through the early 1980s these marks became more and more rounded and more active, culminating in paintings like this one, with its swirling curvilinear movement. On both professional and domestic fronts Collins had entered what was perhaps the most stable period in his life and paintings like this one certainly have a joyous, celebratory feeling to them. Colour is also used with greater gusto, the pale greyed hues having given way to more intense tones like the yellow and blues in On the Dunes. Although the painting still has the diffused light that we associate with the artist, it is more brilliant here.

Collins preferred to paint from memory so that the picture would be an independent entity with its own internal visual logic rather than being determined by the physical appearance of the subject. The composition of this picture is pure Collins, with the main action gravitating towards the edges. He pulls the shapes towards the perimeter and pivots them around the centre so that the composition has a dynamic rotating movement. The use of crisp white paint further animates the surface, contributing to the picture’s freshness. Ovals within ovals and sweeping arabesques reinforce the undulating rhythms of the dunes, the blustery wind and the sea in a way that is far more potent than any literal depiction.

Dr. Frances Ruane

May, 2010

Dr. Ruane is the author of Patrick Collins, The Arts Council Dublin, 1982.

Burke executed many corporate commissions throughout his career including Red Cardinal, 1978 for the Bank of Ireland, Baggot St., Dublin. A member of Aosdána, he concentrated on making smaller 'maquette' pieces in his latter years.

We are grateful to the artist for his assistance in cataloguing this work.