GERARD DILLON | HORSES AT THE HARBOUR WALL

The Waddington Galleries, Montreal, where purchased by the previous owner circa 1975 and thence by descent

Boston, Childs Gallery, 7 January - 2 February 1952, no.5; 

Maxwell Galleries, San Francisco, Gerard Dillon solo exhibition, 27 July - 21 August 1954, no.27

Within the sanctuary of a harbour wall, two horses stand on the beach. Rocks pile up in the foreground and behind two women in traditional dress can be seen while further beyond, two fishermen dry their nets. At the mouth of the harbour, a hooker is making its way in. 

The direct and naive innocence of Gerard Dillon's paintings in the West of Ireland evoke his wondrous-like response to the people and landscape. The paintings he made there in the 1950s have since become embedded in the cultural imagination. They represent a way of life now lost to modern eyes and continue to remain as enchanting to today's audience as to when Dillon painted them. 

We are grateful to Karen Reihill for her kind assistance with the cataloguing of the present work.