Markey Robinson
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Markey Robinson (February 7, 1918, in Belfast, Northern Ireland – January 28, 1999 (aged 80), Belfast) was a prolific Irish artist with a distinctive naïve expressionist style. His main passion was painting, but he also produced sculptures, and designed some stained glass panels.
He trained at the Belfast College of Art. His first exhibitions were in Belfast during WW II, but he became much better known through his exhibitions at the Oriel Gallery in Dublin where over 20 exhibitions were held as well as a steady stream of sales of individual pictures. Another prominent venue for exhibition of Robinson's work was the Royal Hibernian Academy. He also had a long record of one-man-shows in other venues both in Ireland and elsewhere.
More than 400 Markey Robinson works can be seen in the online archive catalogues of Whytes Irish Art Auctions
His paintings cover a wide range of subjects, but there are certain recurring features which appear frequently. These may occur separately or in combination.
- Village scenes of white cottages in which the white gable end of the cottage is distinctive. Frequently, there are no windows visible in these cottages.
- Women wearing dark shawls - no facial features are visible
- Sailboats, normally with dark brown sails, or sometimes white sails
- Jugs feature prominently in his still life paintings
- Circus clowns
He painted the inhabited countryside with flat muted colour and, in his almost abstract, almost geometrical compositions he seemed to capture the easy relationship between beauty and sadness. He was the son of a house painter and spent time as a boxer and as a merchant sailor. In his early career he was championed by the Oriel Gallery in Dublin.
In May 2008, the Taoiseach (the Irish Prime Minister), Brian Cowen TD, officially opened MARKEY AT THE ORIEL, The Oriel Gallery's Markey Robinson retrospective, featuring Markey paintings (and some rare sculpture) from as far back as the 1950s. He also launched a 160 page book/catalogue on the artist by Paul O'Kelly to accompany the exhibition (also entitled MARKEY AT THE ORIEL).
[edit] Bibliography
- "Markey - 30 years at the Oriel Gallery".. Published by The Oriel Gallery 1997
- "Markey Robinson - A Life: The Retrospective".. Susan Stairs.. published by Shortall Stairs publications 1988
- "Markey at the Oriel".. published by The Oriel Gallery 2008
[edit] External links
- [1]
- A discussion from the Oriel Gallery site
- [2] Whytes archive of Markey Robinson auction results
