Full Name John Keating | Name Sean Keating | |
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Education Dublin Metropolitan School of Art Notable work Men of the South, An Allegory, Night\'s Candles Are Burnt Out | ||
Dr imear o connor talks about se n keating s men of the south
Seán Keating (born John Keating, Limerick, 28 September 1889 – Dublin, 21 December 1977) was an Irish romantic-realist painter who painted some iconic images of the Irish War of Independence and of the early industrialization of Ireland. He spent two weeks or so during the late summer on the Aran Islands and his many portraits of island people depicted them as rugged heroic figures. However, he ceased to visit the Aran Islands in 1965.
Contents
- Dr imear o connor talks about se n keating s men of the south
- Se n keating exhibition in cork
- Life and career
- Recent exhibitions
- Recent publications
- Work in collections
- References
Se n keating exhibition in cork
Life and career
Seán Keating studied drawing at the Limerick Technical School before a scholarship arranged by William Orpen allowed him to go at the age of twenty to study at the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin. Over the next few years he spent time on the Aran Islands. In 1914 Keating won the RDS Taylor award with a painting titled The Reconciliation. The prize included £50.00 which allowed him to go to London to work as Orpen's studio assistant in 1915. In late 1915 or early 1916 he returned to Ireland where he documented the war of independence and the subsequent civil war. Examples include Men of the South (1921–22) which shows a group of IRA men ready to ambush a military vehicle and An Allegory (first exhibited in 1924), in which the two opposing sides in the Irish Civil War are seen to bury the tri-colour covered coffin amid the roots on an ancient tree. The painting includes a self-portrait of the artist.
Keating was elected an Associate of the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) in 1918, and a full member in 1923. One of the cardinal achievements of the Irish Free State in the 1920s was the building, in partnership with Siemens, of a hydro-electric power generator at Ardnacrusha, near Limerick. Between 1926 and 1927 Keating, at his own volition, produced a considerable number of paintings related to this scheme. He exhibited several examples of the paintings in the RHA exhibitions in 1927 and 1928. Most of the paintings are now in the collection of ESB Group.
In 1939 he was commissioned to paint a mural for the Irish pavilion at the New York World's Fair. He was President of the RHA from 1950 to 1962, and showed at the annual exhibition for 61 years from 1914. Although Keating was an intellectual painter in the sense that he consciously set out to explore the visual identity of the Irish nation, and his paintings show a very idealized realism; Keating feared that the modern movement would bring back a decline in artistic standards. Throughout his career he exhibited nearly 300 works at the RHA, and also showed at the Oireachtas.
He died on 21 December 1977 at the Adelaide Hospital and was buried at Cruagh Cemetery, Rathfarnham. The 1978 RHA Exhibition featured a small memorial collection of his work.
Posthumous exhibitions of his work were mounted by The Grafton Gallery, Dublin (1986) and the Electricity Supply Board (1987). Sean Keating - The Pilgrim Soul, a documentary presented and written by his son Justin Keating, aired on RTÉ in 1996.
Recent exhibitions
Recent publications
Note: The Keating Estate is in copyright - please seek copyright information from IVARO.