LOUIS LE BROCQUY was one of our great modernists, absorbing European influences when, with a few exceptions, the art world here was perhaps still one of limited and insular vision.
His death truly represents the passing of an era in Irish art – his milieu included Jack B.Yeats, his close friend Samuel Beckett, and fellow Dubliner Francis Bacon. He established himself early on as one of our foremost artists with his unique depictions of “Travellers” – bold Cubist-influenced interpretations of the Ireland of the day or as art connoisseur (and War of Independence IRA leader) Ernie O’Malley described them “symbols of the distressed and dispossessed people of Europe”.
His change of subject and technique from the 1960s to the more familiar and filigreed images that became his trademark marked the emergence of the style with which he is more closely associated and one that could be said to be more subtle, perhaps even tentative. His series of heads was a change in direction born not only out of his desire to discover what he thought of as “the inner reality of the human presence”, but out of a literary sensibility that led to his ethereal portraits of Yeats, Joyce, Beckett, Heaney and Lorca. The series powerfully evokes something beyond mere representation of the physical features of these literary figures – they are penetrating images that seem capable of altering our perceptions of these authors.
He had a reputation for old world courtesy and charm but also a keen inquiring intelligence that would inform his work. A former editor of this newspaper, R M Smyllie once said that the young le Brocquy was “dangerously good at writing letters to me” – an indicator of the artist who would later emerge. The dreamy intensity of his portraits may have camouflaged an artist very much aware of and engaged with realities beyond his art, as his support for the work of Amnesty International demonstrated.
Although his work as a painter leaves us his pre-eminent achievements, his virtuosity extended to the acclaimed brush-drawings he contributed to the Dolmen Press’s much treasured edition of The Táin, a collaboration with the poet Thomas Kinsella. Le Brocquy’s imagination and insight were equally important to the creation of the set of the Gate’s classic production of Waiting for Godot.
For over seven decades Louis le Brocquy has been one of our most committed artists and that commitment ensures his legacy.