Gerard Dillon, R.H.A., R.U.A.

The Dawson Gallery, Dublin, where purchased by the previous owner c.1970;
Private collection

Dublin, Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Gerard Dillon Retrospective, 1973, no.41

The board appears to be sound and the work in very good overall condition. Under ultraviolet light there appear to be no signs of retouching. Held under glass in a gilt wood frame with a linen inset; unexamined out of frame.
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Girl at a Door, from the mid-1950s, epitomises Dillon's delight in life in the West of Ireland. For the Belfast-born painter, the people and landscape of Connemara provided relief from the strife and turmoil between North and South. Connemara was a place to be free and a place to stimulate his work, which is seen in the enchanting body of pictures from this period. In the present painting, Dillon depicts a bare-footed girl clasping a bowl of food, standing in the doorway of a simple, cottage interior. Behind the girl, a green table and chair with blue and white ceramics sits below the sunlit window, a jug of flowers on its sill. Beyond the window, a glimpse of the Connemara hills can be seen in the distance. Standing on the threshold of the doorway, it is an inviting image for the viewer. 

Children feature in a number of Dillon's works at this time, and hold an important symbolic role in his painting. When a friend remarked a child might have painted some of his pictures, Dillon replied, 'that is the greatest compliment you could pay me, I am always trying to see with a child's innocence and sincerity' (James White, Gerard Dillon, An Illustrated Biography, 1994, p.59). This childlike approach was an essential ingredient to his painting and it is this quality, with the bright, unmodulated colour, which instills his work with their vivid and engaging quality. As the artist's biographer, James White, remarked, 'He cultivated simplicity and a love of childhood openness and honesty and he was the only artist whom I ever believed was really sincere when he declared that he wanted to paint with a child's directness'.