Beschreibung:

ACHILL ROCKS AND REFLECTIONS I 1959 Camille Souter HRHA (b.1929)
Signature: signed, inscribed 'Achill' and dated lower centre; exhibition labels on reverse Medium: oil, black enamel, spirit aluminium on kraft paper Dimensions: 49 by 72cm., 19.2 5 by 28.5in. Provenance: Collection of Sir Basil Goulding, Bt; Sold by the Goulding Estate through the Taylor Galleries, 1982; Whence purchased by the present owner Exhibited: ‘One Man’s Meat’, Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin, December 1961, catalogue no. 61 (illustrated on front cover of catalogue); ’Two Painters from the Collection of Sir Basil Goulding’, joint exhibition with Barrie Cooke Ulster Museum, Belfast, 28 January – 27 February 1965, catalogue no. 18; ’Modern Irish Paintings’, Athenaeum, Helsinki, September – October 1969, exhibition toured Scandinavia and to the RCA Gallery, London, November – December 1970, and the City Art Gallery, Leeds, 1971, catalogue no. 44; ’2 Deeply: One Hundred Paintings by Barrie Cooke and Camille Souter’, The Carroll Building, Grand Parade, Dublin, August 1971, in aid of the Central Remedial Clinic, catalogue no. 13; ’Camille Souter: An exhibition of paintings from the collection of Sir Basil Goulding, Bt., and a selection of Still Life paintings from other collections’, YMCA Hall, North Main Street, Wexford, organised by the Friends of the Wexford Festival in conjunction with the Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon, 28 October – 5 November 1972, catalogue no. 11; ’Camille Souter’, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Trinity College Dublin, 8 June – 9 July 1980, catalogue no. 8 (reproduced page 14 of the catalogue); ’From the Collection of Sir Basil Goulding Bart.’, Taylor Galleries, Dublin, 2-18 December 1982, catalogue no. 54 Literature: Garrett Cormican, Camille Souter The Mirror in The Sea, Whyte's, Dublin, 2006, catalogue no. 100, pages 46, 238, illustrated page 55; Aidan Dunne, Making a Space all her own, Irish Times, 12 February 2007, illustrated Camille Souter returned from Italy and settled in Achill in early 1959. Historically, the island has been popular with artists and writers. Major figures such as Paul and Grace Henry, Robert Henri Le... etitia Hamilton, Derek Hill Evie Hone Mainie Jellett, Doreen Vanston, Dorothy Blackham, Barbara Warren, J. M. Synge, Graham Greene and Nobel prize-winner Heinrich Boll have all been attracted to the island. Unintentionally, Souter might be said to have followed in the footsteps of an earlier generation of painters, who learnt a considerable amount about modern painting on the continent and applied that knowledge to the Achill landscape. Her approach was, however, far more radical than any of her predecessors. Throughout the 1950s Souter had used a myriad of unconventional materials and techniques, but in Achill this trend became much more pronounced. It was there that she first began to use fluid aluminium and enamel paints to supplement her limited, less easily obtainable supplies of oil paint. Fortuitously the colours that were available in the local hardware corresponded closely to some of those prevalent in the landscape. The early work from Achill has such a high degree of painterly expressiveness that it may often appear to verge on abstraction and, without reference to a title, one might be at a loss to discover its content or subject. This is undoubtedly true of Achill Rocks and Reflections I. As the artist herself once remarked of her early work ‘None of those pictures were abstract. All the Achill paintings dealt with bog, rocks and pools more or less’. The materials used in the painting (black enamel and aluminium paint on brown kraft wrapping paper) and the manner in which they are used, is strikingly experimental for the period both in an Irish and an international context. While influenced by movements such as abstract expressionism and tachisme, Souter’s work is distinguished by being firmly rooted in its subject. The top half of the Achill Rocks and Reflections I roughly mirrors the lower half. The left half of the painting roughly reflects the r