HECTOR MCDONNELL | NEAR GRAND CENTRAL STATION

Solomon Gallery, Dublin, where purchased by the present owner in 2004

Cristina Leach, Hector McDonnell exhibition review, Sunday Times, 5 September 2004

Dublin, Solomon Gallery, Hector McDonnell, New York Paintings, 2004

The present work is the largest of a series of New York cityscapes the artist undertook in the aftermath of 9/11. Rather than focus on the horrors of the atrocity, McDonnell depicts normal life resuming in the city. There was an additional poignancy to these pictures because the day before 9/11 McDonnell's girlfriend and daughter had been walking in the vicinity of the World Trade Center. As a whole, the paintings avoid sentimentality and offer only subtle references to the attack itself. Rather, the focus is on life continuing and in this sense, the paintings offer hope in the ordinary, everyday rhythms around us.