Morgan O'Driscoll Irish & International Art Auction 29th April 2019

118 95 Tony O’Malley HRHA (1913-2003) Spanish Place Yaiza - Good Friday (1989) signed, titled and dated 1989 verso with artist’s archive no.1690 oil on board 91.5 x 61cm (36 x 24in) Provenance: Private Collection Exhibited: Boyle Art’s Festival, 1989: No.28 (label verso) €20,000-€30,000 ($22,471-$33,707) (£16,949-£25,423) Tony O’Malley had a habit of making paintings on certain days of the year, including Good Friday. From about 1988 and for a number of years onwards Tony and Jane O’Malley visited Lanzarote. While they were there primarily for the favourable climate, both grew to appreciate the distinctive environment. Here, on Good Friday the painter taps into a sombre, Catholic dimension in the village of Yaiza, striking a mood quite at variance with the island’s popular image as a resort. When they began to visit Lanzarote, the couple were on the point of moving to his home place. They had purchased a cottage in Physicianstown, near Callan and O’Malley was increasingly recognised as an important artist in Ireland, having experienced relative neglect during much of his time in Cornwall, until a number of exhibitions in the 1980s brought him into the public spotlight. Several distinct locations were of enduring importance to O’Malley throughout his working life. They include the countryside around Callan, Clare Island (his father was from the island), Wexford, where he began to paint seriously, St Ives and the surrounding landscape, the Bahamas and Lanzarote. With each addition to his mental map, he built a formidable repository of images, detail and atmosphere in his memory and seemed able to draw on it at will. Aidan Dunne, March 2019.