Life
1916- ; b. 10 Nov., Dublin; grandson of a Belgian chemical engineer and
eldest son of Sybil (née Staunton), a writer on Jonathan Swift;
ed. Miss Sweeney’s school at Mount Temple (where Lolly Yeats taught
art on Saturdays), and St. Gerard’s Sch., Bray; self-trained painter;
married in London Jean Stoney, Dec. 1938, with whom a dg., Seyre; introduced
to Ralph Cusack, and moved to his cottage at Cap Martin, May 1939; visited
Venice alone to see paintings; left Menton in Sept. 1939; settled at 15
Ftizwilliam St., Dublin; Girl in White (Kathleen Ryan), RHA 1941; , lectured
on colour to Dublin University Experimental Science Soc. , Oct.
1943; Belfast Refugees, 1941; painted pituitary glands in operation for
Dr. Adam A McConnell; 1940; separated from Jean, 1941; established studio
at 13 Merrion Row with his sis. Melanie; joint exhibition, Doc. 1942;
Young Woman with Iris, port. of Beatrice Campbell (not Lady Glenavy),
1944; Famine Cottages (1944); featured in Vogue article
of Oct. 1946, with Robert Collis, Micheal Mac Liammoir, and others; protested
rejection of Roualt’s Christ and the Soldiers by Dublin Corporation
at behest of Seán Keating and others, 1942; friendship with Erwin
Shcroedinger, de Valera’s guest at the DIAS, 1943; establ. Irish
Exhibition of Living Art, with Mainie Jellett (Chairman), Evie Hone, Norah
McGuinness, Ralph Cusack, Jack Hanlon, SJ, and Margaret Clarke (wife of
Harry Clarke); painted stage-sets for Jimmy O’Dea pantomimes and
reviews; Condemned Man (1945), showed at IELA 1945, where it was
seem by Carles and Kay Gimpel, resulting in a meeting, 27 Sept. 1947;
and at Gimpel Fils, 1947; incl. in British Council exhib. of Contemporary
British painting, Athens, Rome, Paris and Prague, 1948-49; moved to London,
Nov. 1946; met Jankel Adler, Robert MacBride, Keith Vaughan, Robert Colquhiun,
and others; Classic Theme, III (not extant); resigned from the
Living Art in 1950 in reaction against the arbitrary powers of selection
committee; occupied ateliers in London, Paris, and Cannes; widely exhibited
Irish artist since appearing at the Venice Biennale in 1956, winning the
Pre-alpina Prize with A Family (1951), previously offered the the
Municipal Gallery; fnd. Signa, design company, with Michael Scott; m.
Anne Madden-Simpson in Chartes Cathedral, c. 1965, with whom two sons,
Pierre and Alexandre; essentially a figurative painter, he has explored
expression, in early studies of travellers and children and in the more recent
series of heads of writers, Yeats, Joyce, Beckett, Wilde [‘Head’,
1990]; also Lorca; and illustrated works of J. M. Synge, Donagh MacDonagh,
and other Irish writers and also Lorca], as well as Thomas Kinsella’s
Táin translation (Dolmen Press, 1969; & OUP) and Joyce’s
Dubliners (1986); highly acclaimed tapestries. Co-founder of the
Living Art, 1943; member of the RHA, Chevalier of the Legion of Honour,
and D. Litt., TCD, his work is in the Municipal Gallery, Dublin, the Ulster
Museum, Belfast, and others internationally; recent series of paintings
incl. Figures in Procession, Dove, and Orifice; in May 2000 Travelling
Woman with Newspaper sold in May 2000 for a sum in excess of one million
pounds; the largest tapestry is held in the Carroll’s factory building
in Dundalk; a tile floor based on the Táin “hosting”
has been installed in the Verbal Arts Centre, Derry. BREF [FDA]
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Works
Catalogue, Irish Landscape (Dublin: Gandon Eds. 1992), 99pp.
35 watercolours - which the artist calls ‘coloured water on white
paper - mostly of Liffey and Beare Peninsula; includes interview with
George Morgan revealing that they are painted in studio.
Illustrated Irish works incl. John Montague, A Chosen Light (1967), the first drawing in this being carried forward to the Selected Poems (1982); also Thomas Kinsella, trans., The Táin (Dublin: Dolmen 1969); drawings in Desmond O’Grady, The Gododdin, A Version from the Welsh (Dolmen 1977) [ltd. edn. 650]; Seamus Heaney, Ugolino (Cadenus Press 1979), 2 liths.; book design by Liam Miller;
Commentary, ‘A Painter’s Notes on Ambivalence’, in Crane Bag, 1.2 (1977), rep. in The Crane Bag Book (1982), pp.151-153; le Brocquy, ‘Study Towards an Image of James Joyce [Crane Bag Book, pp.154-58]; also The Irish Landscape (Gandon Edns. reiss. 1995), incl. interviews with Michael Peppiatt. ‘Painting and Awareness’, in Études Irlandaises, ed. Patrick Rafroidi, et al. (Dec. 1979), pp.149-62; ‘Art and Industrial Design’: Letter to The Irish Times, 14 Jan., p.11.)
Miscellaneous, Jeremy Madden-Simpson, The No Word Image (Dublin: Eason & Son [1987]), 79, [1]p : ill., original signed lithograph by Louis le Brocquy [ltd. edn. of 500].
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Criticism
Dorothy Walker, Louis le Brocquy (1981).
Richard Kearney, ‘Le Brocquy and Post-modernism’, in The Irish Review, No. 3 (1988), pp.61-66 [rep. in Transitions, 1987].
Anne Madden le Brocquy, Louis le Brocquy, A Painter Seeing His Way (Gill & Macmillan 1994), 335pp.
George Morgan, Procession (Gandon Edns. 1995), 65pp. incls. interview]
Alastair Smith, Louis le Brocquy, Paintings 1939-1996: A Retrospective (IMMA [Gandon] 1996), 10pp., incl. biochronology and bibliography.
George Morgan and Micheal Peppiatt, Louis le Brocquy: The Head Image (Gandon 1996), 160pp., 100 col. ills.
Giess E. Thiessen, Theology and Modern Irish Art (Columba Press 1999), 304pp. [deals with Mainie Jellett, Jack B Yeats, Gerard Dillon, Colin Middleton, patrick Collins, Tony O’Malley, Patrick Scott, Patrick Graham, Patrick Hall.].
Ailbhe Ní Bhriain, ‘Le Livre d’Artiste: Louis le Brocquy and The Tain (1969)’, in New Hibernia Review/Irish Éireannach Nua, 5, 1 (Spring 2001), pp.68-82.
George Morgan, Louis le Brocquy, Paintings 1939-1996 (Dublin: Gandon 1999, 2001).
‘Louis le Brocquy, The Family’, cover-story and feature in Irish Arts, first issue (April-May 2002).
M. Garvey, dir., Another Way of Knowing (RTE 1986) [film on le Brocquy].
George Morgan, Louis le Brocquy: Head Image (Cork: Gandon Edns. 1995).
Michael Dibb, ‘Art: Six of One’ (The Dubliner,
July-August 1962), pp.60-62.
John Montague, ‘Faces of Yeats’, pref. to exhibition catalogue, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1976; rep. in Etudes Irlandaises, 1977;
John Montague, preface to Images of Joyce [Gimpel, touring, 1977-78], rep. in The Crane Bag, 1& 2, 1978.
Thomas Kinsella, in Brian O’Doherty, The Irish Imagination 1959-1971, 1971.)
Francis Bacon, cited in Dorothy Walker, Louis le Brocquy, 1981, q.p.).
Dorothy Walker, ‘Indigenous Culture and Irish Art’, in Crane Bag Book (1982), pp.131-35.
John Montague, ‘Jawseyes’, in Crane Bag Book of Irish Studies (1982), pp.159-60.
Aiden Mathews, ‘Modern Irish Poetry, A Question of Covenants’, in The Crane Bag, [3.1], 1979; 1982, p.381.
Richard Demarco, ‘Celtic Vision in Contemporary Thought’, in Robert O’Driscoll, ed., The Celtic Consciousness (Dolmen/Canongate 1981), pp.519-50
Hilary Pyle, review of Jack B. Yeats, in Modern Painters: Quarterly Journal of the Fine Arts, 4.2 (Summer 1991), pp.90-91.
Derek Mahon, Journalism: Selected Prose 1970-1995 (Oldcastle: Gallery Press 1996), pp.21-29, p.40.
Phoenix Magazine, ‘The Other Louis le Brocquy’, in “Pillars of Society”, Phoenix, 15 Dec. 2000.)
Robert O’Byrne, ‘The travelling life that created Ireland’s greatest living artist’ (Irish Times, 20 May 2000).
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Notes
Full entry in Contemporary Artists [4th Edn.] (St Martin’s
Press 1993), entry by D. C. Bennett; also Who’s Who in Art,
in which his address is given as Gimpel Fils, 30 Davies St., London, WIY
1LG [both these sources in Hofstra University, Long Island, NY).
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Notes
“A Family” by Louis le Brocquy was donated to
the National Gallery of Ireland by businessman Lochlann Quinn in April
2002. Quinn purchased it from Mr. Adams of Agnew’s in London for
£1.7 million and made the donation under the terms of the Taxes Consolidation
Act. A Family (1951) won the Prealpina Prize at Vienna Biennale,
1956; offered free to Municipal in the early 1950s; hung in Milan offices
of Nestlé corporation until 2001. (See Report in The Irish Times
[Weekend], 13 April 2002.)
Record sale: The sale of Travelling Woman with Newspaper in May 2000 for a sum in excess of one million pounds (1.4) to Michael Smurfit struck a record for an Irish painter of any period.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)