Gerard Dillon

Purchased directly from the artist in the 1950s by Gerard Keenan and thence by descent to the present owner 

Original canvas, undulates slightly. There is a craquelure pattern across the surface which has recently been stabilised. The work appears in good overall condition, clean and ready to hang. Ultraviolet light reveals areas of retouching and infilling to across parts of the canvas which have been well executed. Held in a bleached wood frame.
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Stylistically this work dates from the period 1942-5, when Dillon’s subjects on canvas are characteristically naïve and are depicted with a flattened linear perspective showing the influence of the Italian primitives.  ‘The Widow Women’ is similar to a number of paintings exhibited at Dillon’s solo exhibition in Dublin in 1942 at the Country Shop, St. Stephen’s Green, opened by Mainie Jellett.   Several works in this exhibition have a religious theme with an element of humour, in particular, ‘Forgive us our Trespasses,’ ‘Father, Forgive Them’ ‘Good Friday’ and ‘Women at the Wake’.  Cut off by the war, Dillon relied on subject matter from his everyday life as he commuted by train between the cities of Belfast and Dublin.  Reflecting on his early paintings, Dillon told a writer ‘there was always a slightly humorous element in my early painting, how it got there I don’t know. Must have been because life amused me.’[1]  Throughout Dillon’s painting career, humour acted as a springboard to express deeper thoughts and feelings in relation to death, religion and politics.  The depiction of the virtuous widow in the painting and the timing of the death of Dillon’s mother in 1942 may be clues to the inspiration for this painting.

Born off the Falls Road in West Belfast, Dillon grew up in an atmosphere of nationalist aspirations and religious rituals.  His mother, Annie Dillon was a staunch catholic who insisted on fervent adherence to her beliefs which included daily rituals of devotion and prayers.   Altars with candles, lamps, and reproductions of the Sacred Heart and the Virgin Mary were commonplace in Dillon’s life.  In adolescence Dillon abandoned his church, following an experience in a confession box when he told a priest that he preferred boys to girls.  In 1934, he sought the anonymity of London life and worked as a house painter.  Later, at the outbreak of war he found himself marooned in Ireland and returned to live in Belfast.  Viewing wartime as an opportunity to become an artist, he reached out to art communities in Belfast and Dublin. Self- taught, he met Belfast artist Daniel O’Neill (1920-1974) who introduced him to painting techniques and the Italian Renaissance painters.  In Dublin, Mainie Jellett (1827-1944) championed Dillon and allowed him access to her studio to paint in preparation for his first solo exhibition in 1942.   Single minded in her attitude, Jellett’s admiration for early Christian, Celtic and Byzantine art would have had an impact on the young impressionable artist.[2] Elements of these influences can be easily identified in the painting.

Sitting rigidly on a stool dressed in muted tones, a widow takes center stage while her deceased husband, who is laid out in preparation for ‘keening’, takes a peripheral role. [3] Lighted candles, and a statue of the Virgin Mary are symbols of a wake, however the proximity of these items to the widow is deliberate.  The exaggerated size of the mourning widow in relation to her husband is conspicuous as is the location of the widow’s husband.  Surprisingly, the deceased is depicted horizontally at the top of the canvas in a coffin-like space, the vertical plane acting as the lid of the box.  The male youth holding vigil with his sister is genuflecting. In another painting ‘The Confessional’[4]  Dillon represents himself kneeling in the same way as the narrative relates to his experience with a priest in a confession box.   The widow’s solemn expression reflects her grief, but her eyes appear raised towards heaven rather than directed at her husband.  The lit candles on either side of the Virgin Mary on the altar table radiate light, which illuminate the widow’s garments as she clasps her hands around a bowl of holy water.  The deceased has an uncanny resemblance to Dillon’s father, Joseph Henry Dillon, which suggests the subject may be linked to his mother.   As Dillon was growing up, Annie Dillon habitually reminded her children during their daily prayer rituals of her belief that only women could be saints: ‘any women who did her duties and kept her dignity in spite of the hammerings her husband gave her was a saint.’[5]   The cat curled underneath the table probably personifies Dillon’s amusement of this memory of his mother.        

The provenance of this painting gives us further insight into its context.  The Belfast writer Gerard Keenan (1927-2015)[6]  and his wife Peggy, who came from the Springfield Road area, met Dillon through their mutual friend, the pianist Tom Davidson. In the 1950’s, when the Keenans moved to London, Dillon was a regular visitor to their flat.   ‘Peggy adored Gerry [Dillon]’[7] who was struggling to gain recognition as an artist.   In 1955, the Keenans purchased this work and years later in a novel, ‘Streetwalkers of Pimlico,’[8]  Gerard Keenan referred to the time he and his wife purchased the painting:

‘Before coming to St John’s Wood, Jo[9][Gribben] and I had agreed on the painting we wanted to buy.  Entitled ‘The Widow Woman’ it portrayed on the left, a teen-aged brother and sister on their knees praying Dodie[10] [Mulherne] said he had based them on kneeling angels in a Fra Angelico painting. On the right was their mourning mother, monumental, seated on a chair.  In the middle, a covered table with funerary candles and a statue of the Blessed Virgin, beneath the table a sleeping black cat.  Across the entire top of the painting was a death-bed, a brass-bed, on which lay the late father, his hands joined in their last prayer, wearing, one would think, the dun habit of the Third Order of St Francis, a common pious practice when laying out the dead.  It was a strong and lovely painting with a hint of icon in its solemnity. (It was no coincidence, perhaps that both Jo and I were offspring of widowed Mothers.  Who knows?)’[11]

We are grateful to Karen Reihill for kindly preparing this catalogue entry. 

[1] Marion Fitzgerald, ‘The Artist Talks’ (interview with Gerard Dillon) The Irish Times, 23 September 1964, p.11.

[2] For more on Jellet and Dillon see Karen Reihill, ‘Gerard Dillon, Art & Friendships’, 2013, pg. 22-24.  This work under the title ‘The Widow’ is mentioned, p.122.

[3] Keeners were visitors or family members who lamented the deceased after the body was prepared.

[4] Executed in 1950, this work is illustrated in ‘Gerard Dillon, Art & Friendships,’ p.7.

[5] Dillon quoting memories of Annie Dillon in James White, Gerard Dillon An Illustrated Biography, Wolfound Press, 1994, pg. 21.

[6] For more on Keenan’s friendship with Dillon, see ‘Gerard Dillon, Art & Friendships,’ p.73.

[7] Interview with Gerard Keenan, London 27 May 2011.

[8] The unpublished novel (2010) is a semi- autobiographical account of Gerard Keenan’s life in London during the 1950’s.

[9] Jo Gribben is a disguised version of Gerard Keenan’s wife, Peggy Keenan.

[10] Dodie Mulherne is a disguised version of Gerard Dillon.

[11] Chapter 7, ‘Missing Uel Niblock’ pg. 80-82 Uel Niblock is a disguised version of Tom Davidson.