Beschreibung:

George Campbell RHA RUA (1917 - 1994) Reeds and Rocks, Co. Mayo Oil on board, 50 x 76cm (19.5 x 29.9'') Signed, inscribed with title verso Provenance: Ritchie Hendriks Gallery, Dublin, 1967, cat. no. 34 It was on the natural phenomena of the West of Ireland that Campbell honed his craft. The bleak, desolate terrain of the west entranced him. Even his early Irish landscapes display a fascination with underlying patterns and rhythms. He spoke of 'The warp and weft of the landscape.' In interviews he described his later works as the 'Connemara-tweed landscapes, the Donegal-tweed landscapes'. As he developed beyond the realistic portrayal of place he began to express himself through colour and form. Rocks and mountains began to be seen in planes of colour rather than realistically. He painted specific locations but they are analysed and reassembled, almost tessellated. By breaking down the landscape in this way he was able, in representing it anew, to eliminate all the unimportant elements. A self-taught, intuitive painter, he revelled in the 'great delight in handling paint from the feel of it, the look of it. I got a tremendous kick, 'he said, 'from being able to take a palette-knife and swish the paint onto the canvas, from seeing colours and textures emerge that I had never seen before.' Despite his protestations in a 1978 BBC interview that 'it is not possible to talk about art', his enthusiasm did often spill over into descriptive passages about his approach to painting. This comment describes perfectly Reeds and Rocks, Co. Mayo : ' I love blacks and browns against pinks and yellows that leap at you from the painting'. S?le Connaughton-Deeny, October 2010 George Campbell RHA RUA (1917 - 1994) Reeds and Rocks, Co. Mayo Oil on board, 50 x 76cm (19.5 x 29.9'') Signed, inscribed with title verso Provenance: Ritchie Hendriks Gallery, Dublin, 1967, cat. no. 34 It was on the natural phenomena of the West of Ireland that Campbell honed his craft. The bleak, desolate terrain of the west entranced him. Even his early Irish landscapes display a fascination with underlying patterns and rhythms. He spoke of 'The warp and weft of the landscape.' In interviews he described his later works as the 'Connemara-tweed landscapes, the Donegal-tweed landscapes'. As he developed beyond the realistic portrayal of place he began to express himself through colour and form. Rocks and mountains began to be seen in planes of colour rather than realistically. He painted specific locations but they are analysed and reassembled, almost tessellated. By breaking down the landscape in this way he was able, in representing it anew, to eliminate all the unimportant elements. A self-taught, intuitive painter, he revelled in the 'great delight in handling paint from the feel of it, the look of it. I got a tremendous kick, 'he said, 'from being able to take a palette-knife and swish the paint onto the canvas, from seeing colours and textures emerge that I had never seen before.' Despite his protestations in a 1978 BBC interview that 'it is not possible to talk about art', his enthusiasm did often spill over into descriptive passages about his approach to painting. This comment describes perfectly Reeds and Rocks, Co. Mayo : ' I love blacks and browns against pinks and yellows that leap at you from the painting'. S?le Connaughton-Deeny, October 2010