Life
1889-1977, b. Limerick, ed. St. Munchin’s College, and Limerick Municipal
School of Art; schol. to Dublin Metropolitan School of Art [var. Royal
College of Art, Dublin]; studied under Orpen in London, to 1916; spent
4 years on Aran; moved from Dublin to Ballyboden house of own design;
RHA, 1923, instrumental in rejection of Roualt’s Christ
and the Soldiers by Dublin Corporation, 1942; Pres. of RHA, 1949-62;
showed every year for 61 yrs after 1914; taught at National College of
Art [NCAD] for 20 yrs.; large canvas at New York World Fair; mural
for International Labour Office, Geneva; fine draughtsman, disliked modern
trends; patriotic subjects of which the best known is his Men of the
West (1915); also Men of the South, armed for an ambush, and
large canvas of the Blessing of the Tricolour (Crawford Gallery,
Cork); also Night’s Candles Are Burnt Out (1928-29), an allegory
of conflict between church, business, revolution and traditional values;
MRHA. BREF DIB DIH
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Notes
Municipal Gallery, Dublin, holds Sean Keating, "A Man of the West",
1916; see in Brian O’Doherty, The Irish Imagination 1959-1971
(1971). IN Rosc Exhib. Cat. Night’s Candles Are Burnt Out
(1928-29), owned by the Oldham Art Gall., Lancashire, is on loan to the
ESB; also ill. in Kennedy and Gillespie, Ireland, Art into History
(Dublin: Town House 1994).
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)