Micheal Farrell

Crucially, Farrell was the only Irish artist initially selected to be included in the first ROSC exhibition of fifty international artists in 1967.  He had anticipated including three paintings, two works from the Contained Motif series and one from the Cairn series; the present work and lot 10 are highly likely to be the two Contained Motif works. For several reasons, Farrell did not participate however, Sean Sweeney, son of James Johnson Sweeney, Director of the Guggenheim, New York, and Chair of the selection committee, later wrote to Farrell's wife Meg that, 'my father preferred his painting to all others in Ireland even in 1967, the year of the first ROSC' (Sweeney, quoted in David Farrell, Micheal Farrell, The Life and Work of an Irish Artist, Dublin 2006, p.44).

The dynamic curvilinear style and composition of lots 8 and 9 also formed the basis of Farrell's design for an important large scale mural commission he received from Sir Basil Goulding for the Bank of Ireland headquarters in College Green completed in 1967. Due to the size of the commission (the final work measured 14ft by 20ft), Farrell enlisted the help of the young Robert Ballagh and the mural was executed quickly with 'Ballagh painting the triangles, Micheal the circles..' (Farrell, ibid., p.40).

In tune with his reaction to the political situation in Ireland during the late 1960s and 70s, Farrell moved away from his early Hard-edge Celtic style and turned to a more figurative form of expression in the next decade (see lot 14).