Morgan O'Driscoll Irish & International Art Auction 21st October 2019

96 68 Tony O’Malley HRHA (1913-2003) Goombay Music (1977) signed with initials and dated January ‘77, signed and titled verso oil on canvas 152 x 122cm (60 x 48in) Provenance: Artist’s label verso with archive No. R190; Private Collection €20,000-30,000 (£17,699-26,548) From 1974, Tony and Jane O’Malley made annual visits to the Bahamas, where Jane’s sister lived. They would spend about six weeks there during the winter months, working outdoors. It was extremely beneficial for Tony’s health and, although he had not anticipated it, inspirational for his work. The brilliant sunlight and bright colours led to a new, high-keyed palette in his painting, and the vegetation, birdlife and watery landscapes provided a wealth of material. O’Malley painting is always attentive to his surroundings. He was attuned to the signs and relics written into the environment. In Ireland, whether in the Norman domain of his mother’s family or Clare Island, where his father’s family lived, the terrain was ripe with historical clues and relics. The same was true of St Ives and its surroundings in Cornwell. The Bahamas were different. There were the remains of one monastery, but otherwise nature held sway. Music and sounds, such as birdsong, visualised as rhythmic marks and patterns, had always featured in O’Malley’s paintings (he played the accordion). Goombay is a rhythmic, percussive form of Bahamian music, close to calypso. The word also refers to its main instrument, a goatskin drum. This painting, comparable to others made at the time, such as Bahamian Painting I (1976-1978) is an exceptionally spare visualisation of the local music. The buoyant, airy centre is punctuated and framed by patterns of beats, as though the cheerful music fills the sky above the undulating landscape spread out below. Aidan Dunne, September 2019