John Keating obituary: Renowned artist who sought to capture life’s beauty and fragility

Born January 20th, 1953

Died August 17th, 2023

John Keating, who has died aged 70, was one of Ireland’s best-known visual artists, working as a painter and draughtsman across a very wide range of art media including oils, watercolours, mixed media, charcoal and still life. Much of the major work for which he is renowned was exhibited abroad, particularly in the US and Italy. Notably for such an accomplished artist, he was never elected either to Aosdána or the Royal Hibernian Academy.

Keating was exhibiting in Italy as recently as last month, in the Palazzo dei Priori in Assisi, a Unesco World Heritage Centre, in a group show of six artists; in 2020, he had been awarded first prize for painting in the Nazionale per Le Arti Visive in Bologna.

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He first exhibited work in Italy in the 1990s, where he was represented by Compagnia Del Disegno in Milan. Keating became a fixture in the Milanese art scene simply by going into to the gallery while on holiday in the Italian city, and introducing himself to its renowned director, Alain Toubas. Having seen examples of his work, Toubas took Keating immediately into his stable of artists.

Keating was widely known in the US, where, at the very beginning of his career as an independent artist, he received a year’s scholarship at the Art Student League in New York in the late 1970s, and from 1980-1981 a Fulbright scholarship.

He received more than 25 awards in Ireland, Italy, China, Monaco and the United States for his work.

Perhaps the highest point of his varied career came in 2012, when the International Olympic Committee agreed to be the patron of an exhibition at the Barbican in London, to coincide with that year’s Olympic Games in the city. Under the title the Olympic Fine Arts 2012, the London Organising Committee of the Games and the Chinese Olympic Committee invited 500 artists from around the world to exhibit works.

Keating’s entry, Oriental Lilies, oil on canvas, was awarded the Gold Medal for painting. He was one of 100 artists invited to Beijing for a special exhibition that autumn, the Olympic Water Cube Exhibition, and his work was included in a seven-month tour of Italy, entitled the Stemperando, which was curated by the then president of the National Institute of Contemporary Art of Italy and opened in Turin, Cozenza and Rome.

Keating exhibited in joint shows with artists including Lucien Freud, Giacomo Manzu and Igor Mitoraj in prestigious galleries including the Barbican and the Joan Miró Foundation in Barcelona. His work is included in private and public collections in Ireland, the US, Australia, Italy, Greece and England.

He showed a very early and extraordinary talent, winning a Caltex (later Texaco) Award for Art aged seven and being accepted into the adult art class at Clonmel Technical School aged 12

Keating’s oeuvre is not easy to define, something that might have been intentional. A spiritual man, he sought, in his own words, to capture both the beauty of life – not only human life, but the life more broadly of nature, especially of plants – and its fragility and transience.

Keating’s father, Pierce, was a much-respected wood-turner and carpenter in Clonmel, Co Tipperary. The son’s observations of his father creating works of great craftsmanship found an echo in his art, with its recurring motifs of human hands. His mother ran a chiropody practice. Her patients included a priest who blessed the young Keating’s eye after it became infected. Doctors concluded it would have to be removed, but remarkably, he was cured. In adult life would visit the priest’s grave on visits to his hometown. His very early childhood included a near brush with fatal illness, something which resonated in his concern as a painter with human frailty.

He showed a very early and extraordinary talent, winning a Caltex (later Texaco) Award for Art aged seven and being accepted into the adult art class at Clonmel Technical School aged 12. He was educated by the Christian Brothers in High School, Clonmel, and studied art at the Crawford School of Art in Cork. Later he completed a diploma in Art History at Trinity College Dublin, followed by a course in ceramics at Loughborough College in England.

Keating is survived by his wife, Miriam O’Meara, a director of opera and theatre; his twin daughters, Rebecca and Ruth; and his sisters Monica, Anne and Mary. He was predeceased in early childhood by his sister Margaret.