Basil Rakoczi

Galerie Raymond Suillerot, Paris;
Private collection

The picture is in original, unrestored condition. The paint surface is dirty and should benefit from a light clean. There are a few isolated spots of paint losses, notably near the edges and there are some areas of separation to the darker pigments. The picture appears in good original condition overall, and should respond well to some conservation. Under ultraviolet light there appear to be no signs of retouching. Held in original, simple wood slip frame.
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Rakoczi was born on 31 May, 1908, in Chelsea during the brief marriage of his mother Charlotte May Dobby, daughter of an Irish seaman, to the Hungarian Ivan Rakoczi. In 1932, Rakoczi took a studio on Fitzroy Street in London where he turned his attention towards his painting and interest psychology, two key passions that he would follow till the end of his life. In May 1933, he created the Society for Creative Psychology with his friend, Herbrand Ingouville-Williams, with an aim to create a methodology in psychology attuned to what they called ‘the natural rhythm of life’.  Ingouville-Williams would prove to be one of Rakoczi’s close friends along with Kenneth Hall, an impoverished artist who worked closely with Rakoczi and exhibiting with him many times. In 1935, Hal and Rakoczi established the White Stag Group for the advancement of subjectivity in art and psychological analysis, combining Rakoczi’s two main interests within one society. In late February 1940 they all moved to Dublin and Rakoczi and Hall had soon made a small circle of Irish artist friends. The activity of Rakoczi, Hall and the White Stag Group climaxed with the Exhibition of Subject Art in January 1944, which encouraged those closest to the group’s ideals to create a genuine Irish avant-garde. Later that year, the work of Rakoczi, Hall and Patrick Scott featured in the publication of the book Three Painters which undoubtedly helped to disseminate the work of the White Stag painters to an even wider audience. Hall returned to England in September 1945 and later took his own life in July 1955.  Rakoczi was devastated, especially since Ingouville-Williams also passing away shortly before and he moved to France to begin a new era in his life. In France, Rakoczi experimented working in stone and wood with the sculptor Ossi Zadine (1890 – 1967) as well as continuing his painting, sending works to annual exhibitions in Ireland. He also managed to hold a number of one-man shows in Dublin between 1948 and 1954. Rakoczi showed some talent with graphic works, all of which were issued under the imprint of the ‘Editions du Cerf Blanc’ (White Stag Press). He passed away on the 21 March 1979 in London after serious poor health that prevented him from painting in the last few years of his life.

In the present work, the strong pyschological element - the blind man and the owl - and the abstract forms recognise Rakoczi's European heritage and awareness of post-war expressionism, and also his pervading interest in creative psychology. It was painted the year after Rakoczi's move to France, and after the suicide of  Ingouville-Williams and the death of Hall.