Julian Campbell, Walter Osborne in the West of Ireland, James Adams Salerooms, 127 pp, illus. ISBN 0 9549189 0 8 pbk. €45
Reviewed in the Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, vol. 58, 2005
Walter Osborne visited Galway on at least six occasions during the 1890s, and recorded his impressions of the city, of Roundstone, and of Renvyle in several dozen paintings and in many sketches. These works are important, according to Julian Campbell, but they have been largely overlooked by art historians, because they were mostly small in size, because few of them came into public ownership, and because they were the fruit of short visits rather than of an extended stay in the region. The neglect has been remedied by this fine publication, which draws on sources which were not available a few decades ago when Jeanne Sheehy published her studies of the artist.
Osborne, in his 33rd year, was an established painter when he made his first recorded visit to Galway in May 1892. The son of a Dublin artist, he had grown up in Rathmines and attended the Royal Hibernian Academy before enrolling in the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp at the age of 22. During his eighteen months in Antwerp, he was introduced to plein-air painting and received encouragement to seek the picturesque in the daily clamour of the city and in the goings-on of surrounding villages. After Antwerp, Osborne was attracted to Brittany – a mecca for late 19th century artists – and from there went to England, where he painted mainly rural, village and maritime scenes, remaining attached to working out-of-doors and further developing his style. Returning to Dublin, he came to play an important role in the artistic life of the city during the second half of the 1880s, teaching, co-founding the Dublin Art Club, and winning full membership of the Royal Hibernian Academy. In his native city, the artist found his principal subjects around the markets.
That Galway’s markets and fairs also attracted Osborne’s attention is indicated by paintings reproduced here of the fish and fowl markets, and of a horse fair. As well as showing the variety of the local costume, which, in its own way, was as exotic for the Dubliner as that of Brittany, these works bear witness to their maker’s sensitivity towards his subjects, These paintings may be appreciated for their intrinsic merit, but they are of special interest also to the historian of Galway. The Claddagh was another favourite subject, but it presented the artist with a problem, for the Claddagh women proved reluctant models. The author suggests that Osborne’s style evolved to meet this challenge, and that his increasingly impressionistic ‘pochades’ (roughly painted outdoor sketches in oils) on pre-prepared wooden panels represented his response to Claddagh circumstance. Osborne also painted some Galway maritime scenes, including one of the better-known of his works in the west, ‘Moon rising, Galway harbour’ – showing, in Campbell’s words, ‘a delicate pink moon rising above the low silhouette of Galway’. This painting is held by the Hugh Lane Gallery.
Although Osborne was drawn towards the rustic and the primitive in his art, he held on to comforts of civilisation in his expeditions to the country, and, arguably, something of his personality is revealed in the list he prepared prior to packing for a short sojourn in Roundstone in 1897:
Knickerbocker suit, Black do. Bathing drawers, 4 Soft Shirts, 2 White. 1 Inside vest, 2 Night Shirts, Turn down collars, 6 White do. Ties,
Long stockings, Socks, Shoes, Slippers, Brush and comb, Sponge, Toothbrush and powder, Washer, Shaving brush, Nail brush, Caps,
Writing case, Books, Tobacco, Cigars, Cigarettes, Paint box, Easel, Umbrella, Stool, Sketches, Canvas…
Around Roundstone and Renvyle, Osborne recorded the working lives, the domestic settings and the social encounters of the people, culminating in a large canvas showing Roundstone, entitled ‘Life in Connemara, a Market Day’, which he exhibited in London in 1898, and to which considerable attention is devoted here.
Osborne’s Galway oeuvre is dealt with in the first of the book’s three chapters. In the remainder, Campbell places his work in context by considering representations of the west of Ireland – and of Galway and Conamara in particular – by other 19th century artists. These include individuals whose work will be familiar, such as Frederick William Burton, and Aloysius O’Kelly, and others whose work is less well-known. There are short biographical sketches of the artists concerned, together with accounts of their endeavours in the west and reproductions of key works. These chapters will perhaps be of even greater interest to those with an interest in the history of county Galway than the chapter focusing on Osborne himself.
A large format paperback, well-illustrated in colour and well-produced, this book deserves a wide circulation in the county. It will have an obvious appeal for those with an interest in Irish art, but it will also have value as an introduction to an under-utilised source for the social history of the west of Ireland.
Reviewed in the Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, vol. 58, 2005
Walter Osborne visited Galway on at least six occasions during the 1890s, and recorded his impressions of the city, of Roundstone, and of Renvyle in several dozen paintings and in many sketches. These works are important, according to Julian Campbell, but they have been largely overlooked by art historians, because they were mostly small in size, because few of them came into public ownership, and because they were the fruit of short visits rather than of an extended stay in the region. The neglect has been remedied by this fine publication, which draws on sources which were not available a few decades ago when Jeanne Sheehy published her studies of the artist.
Osborne, in his 33rd year, was an established painter when he made his first recorded visit to Galway in May 1892. The son of a Dublin artist, he had grown up in Rathmines and attended the Royal Hibernian Academy before enrolling in the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp at the age of 22. During his eighteen months in Antwerp, he was introduced to plein-air painting and received encouragement to seek the picturesque in the daily clamour of the city and in the goings-on of surrounding villages. After Antwerp, Osborne was attracted to Brittany – a mecca for late 19th century artists – and from there went to England, where he painted mainly rural, village and maritime scenes, remaining attached to working out-of-doors and further developing his style. Returning to Dublin, he came to play an important role in the artistic life of the city during the second half of the 1880s, teaching, co-founding the Dublin Art Club, and winning full membership of the Royal Hibernian Academy. In his native city, the artist found his principal subjects around the markets.
That Galway’s markets and fairs also attracted Osborne’s attention is indicated by paintings reproduced here of the fish and fowl markets, and of a horse fair. As well as showing the variety of the local costume, which, in its own way, was as exotic for the Dubliner as that of Brittany, these works bear witness to their maker’s sensitivity towards his subjects, These paintings may be appreciated for their intrinsic merit, but they are of special interest also to the historian of Galway. The Claddagh was another favourite subject, but it presented the artist with a problem, for the Claddagh women proved reluctant models. The author suggests that Osborne’s style evolved to meet this challenge, and that his increasingly impressionistic ‘pochades’ (roughly painted outdoor sketches in oils) on pre-prepared wooden panels represented his response to Claddagh circumstance. Osborne also painted some Galway maritime scenes, including one of the better-known of his works in the west, ‘Moon rising, Galway harbour’ – showing, in Campbell’s words, ‘a delicate pink moon rising above the low silhouette of Galway’. This painting is held by the Hugh Lane Gallery.
Although Osborne was drawn towards the rustic and the primitive in his art, he held on to comforts of civilisation in his expeditions to the country, and, arguably, something of his personality is revealed in the list he prepared prior to packing for a short sojourn in Roundstone in 1897:
Knickerbocker suit, Black do. Bathing drawers, 4 Soft Shirts, 2 White. 1 Inside vest, 2 Night Shirts, Turn down collars, 6 White do. Ties,
Long stockings, Socks, Shoes, Slippers, Brush and comb, Sponge, Toothbrush and powder, Washer, Shaving brush, Nail brush, Caps,
Writing case, Books, Tobacco, Cigars, Cigarettes, Paint box, Easel, Umbrella, Stool, Sketches, Canvas…
Around Roundstone and Renvyle, Osborne recorded the working lives, the domestic settings and the social encounters of the people, culminating in a large canvas showing Roundstone, entitled ‘Life in Connemara, a Market Day’, which he exhibited in London in 1898, and to which considerable attention is devoted here.
Osborne’s Galway oeuvre is dealt with in the first of the book’s three chapters. In the remainder, Campbell places his work in context by considering representations of the west of Ireland – and of Galway and Conamara in particular – by other 19th century artists. These include individuals whose work will be familiar, such as Frederick William Burton, and Aloysius O’Kelly, and others whose work is less well-known. There are short biographical sketches of the artists concerned, together with accounts of their endeavours in the west and reproductions of key works. These chapters will perhaps be of even greater interest to those with an interest in the history of county Galway than the chapter focusing on Osborne himself.
A large format paperback, well-illustrated in colour and well-produced, this book deserves a wide circulation in the county. It will have an obvious appeal for those with an interest in Irish art, but it will also have value as an introduction to an under-utilised source for the social history of the west of Ireland.