Michael FARRELL
1940–2000, Ireland/France
A graduate of St Martin’s School of Art, London, Micheal Farrell emerges as one of the most interesting of the group of Irish artists, notably Pat Scott, Jonathan Wade and Evin Nolan, who engaged with Modernist art in the 1960s. His early abstract paintings and sculptures combined geometric and organic elements, and were in tune with the hard-edged abstraction then current internationally. One of the finest of these works was a large mural commissioned by the Bank of Ireland in 1967.
Although he emigrated to France in 1971, Farrell continued to exhibit regularly in Ireland, and in the years following he evolved a personal style in which figurative elements again reappear, often relating to his own particular status and condition, linked with that of his native country. His work has been shown worldwide, and is included in the collections of the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin City Gallery – the Hugh Lane, Ulster Museum, City of Manchester Art Gallery, Centres Georges Pompidou, Paris, and the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris. He won numerous international prizes during his career, and was elected a member of Aosdána in 1987.
Source: http://www.crawfordartgallery.ie/Paintings/MichaleFarrell.html
Michael Farrell (målare, tecknare, grafiker och skulptör) född 1940, deltog redan på tidigt 60-tal i utställningar av ung konst världen över. Som 17-åring hade han blivit antagen till St. Martin School of Art i London. Farrells tidiga konst kännetecknas av ett sorts geometriskt-abstrakt måleri med anknytning till keltisk ornamentik. Senare tar sig Farrells politiska engagemang uttryck i konsten. Hans engagemang i den Irländska frågan inspirerar bl.a. till O´Murphy-serien, ”där han omformar 1700-talsmästaren Bouchers målning av den irländska Pariskokotten och kungamätressen Birgit O´Murphy till en MADONNA IRLANDA, med gloria, men också med slaktarens styckningsschema. Miss O´Murphy är också ett av inslagen i de skisser Farrell gjort för en internationell balett av Maurice Béjart I Bryssel.” (Knut Andersson)
Farrell finns representerad i bl.a. Musée d´Art Moderne i Paris, Ireland House i London, Peter Stuyvesant Foundation i Amsterdam etc.
Source: www.uppsalaauktion.se