Robert Ballagh

Acquired by the present owner circa 1976

Each smaller board is mounted on a larger backboard. There are some minor scuff marks at the edges and in the bottom right corner and some light surface dirt otherwise in good original condition. Under ultraviolet light, there appear to be no signs of retouching. Unframed.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Man with a Frank Stella belongs to an important series of pop-inspired works executed in the early 1970s that was crucial in establishing Ballagh's international reputation.  Stemming from the artist's ongoing fascination with narrative, his series of people looking at paintings marks his obsession at the time with the complex relationship between the viewer and the work of art and more specifically, with the growing cult of viewers who perceived art as sacred-like objects. The prominence of the viewers in the foreground also highlights their vital importance in relation to a work of art and as Declan Kiberd has propounded, '...if a story always needs listeners, then a painting is nothing without viewers' (D. Kiberd, 'Robert Ballagh: Activism and Art', Robert Ballagh - Artist and Designer, exh.cat., Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, 15^th September - 22^nd October 2006, p.9). 

The panel format of the present work relates to the larger scale works from the series, each consisting of similarly sized square panels which enabled them to be exhibited as a cohesive whole to maximise their visual impact whilst at the same time making up individual works of art (see fig.1, installation shot at the David Hendriks Gallery, Dublin, 1972). The use of the larger panels was also a practical solution for the young artist whose diminutively sized studio above his parents's flat on Elgin road could not accommodate large sized canvases.

The central focus on each work in the series is a painting by one of the International Modernists such as Barnett Newman, Roy Lichtenstein, and in the present work, Frank Stella, as well as his Irish contemporaries such as Cecil King and Michael Farrell. Each new work enabled Ballagh to come to terms with another artist's techniques and theories allowing him to develop his own critical opinion of them. Executed in 1974, the present work focuses on Stella's Tampa (1963) and anticipates the final work in the series, a commission for an 80ft wide mural for a supermarket in Clonmel taking the same artist's abstract idiom as its subject (People and a Frank Stella, 1975, now in the South Tipperary County Museum, Clonmel).