Micheal Farrell

Variation on a Contained Motif 2 and 3 (lot 11) are rare important early works by the artist and demonstrate the distinctive abstract style that he developed within the avant-garde context of London during the 1960s.  Having studied at St Martin's School of Art in London from 1957 - 1961, Farrell was introduced by his friend Bryan Ingham, to the key protagonists of the British Pop Art scene at the time such as Patrick Caulfield, Richard Hamilton, Peter Blake and R.B. Kitaj. He was particularly inspired by Caulfield and the bold graphic lines of the present work clearly relate to Caulfield's sharp graphic style in works such as View of the Ruins (1964, Private Collection). 

Alongside the creative backdrop of London in the 1960s, Farrell was also influenced by his own Irish heritage and he saw his work as 'getting into a kind of Celtic image, kind of Celtic geometric, not completely abstractionist. They looked like art - like monuments, ornaments, tightly painted' (Farrell quoted in David Farrell, op.cit., p.31).  In particular, the calligraphy of the Book of Kells was a key influence on the curvilinear forms evident in the present work and in Farrell's opinion, 'having no Celtic tradition in painting of over 1,000 years, one has to go back to when Celtic art was at its greatest and most important, for it is true that no picture of any value concerned with the real problems of picture-making have been made in Ireland since the Book of Kells' (Farrell quoted in David Farrell, op.cit., p.32). 

In addition to the illustrative design of the Book of Kells, he was also inspired by the visual power of religious rites in Ireland such as the smoke rings emerging from a thurible used to burn incense at benediction. The coil-like effect of the smoke is clearly evident in the interwoven forms of Thurible's Wake (1965), his Cairn series, and the present works which have become known as his 'hard-edge Celtic works'.

The present work was specifically dedicated to Robert McBryde (1913 - 1966), a well known Scottish artist who died tragically in a car crash in Dublin where he was then living.