The death of the painter Thurloe Conolly in France, at the age of 98, has severed one of the last living links between the art world of today and the pioneering years of the White Stag Group, that loose affiliation of avant-garde artists who injected so much cultural vibrancy into the Dublin art scene in the early 1940s.
Along with Patrick Scott, Brian Boydell and other kindred spirits, Conolly exhibited with the White Stags on several occasions, before going on to pursue an independent career as an artist, first in Ireland, and then, from 1967 onwards, in France.
His talent as a painter was evident right from his early works. Brooding landscapes, with buildings silhouetted against stormy skies, recall the work of John Piper and Graham Sutherland, revealing a Modern Romantic sensibility.
In contrast, Conolly’s later paintings are predominantly abstract, lighter in tone and palette, and employ much in the way of signs and signifiers, inscribed into the surface of the paint. He said he liked to paint “things invisible to see”.
Having been based in France for almost half a century, with his work seldom shown in Ireland, Conolly faded somewhat from view. So his appearance in person at the opening of the White Stag exhibition at Imma in 2005 was a surprise and delight.
The revival of interest in his work was spurred by the inclusion of early paintings, photo-montages and "Surrealoids" in the Crawford Art Gallery 2015/2016 exhibition Language of Dreams, and by a solo show, held at the same time, at the CIT Wandesford Quay Gallery, that featured more recent abstract works.
Born in 1918, the son of Constance Elizabeth Conolly (née Jeffares) and William, a structural engineer, Thurloe Conolly spent the first year of his life in Cork city. The family then moved to Dublin, to Zion Road, where their next-door neighbours were Albert and Sybil le Brocquy. Two years later they moved again, to Newbridge, and then to Limerick.
Thurloe’s father introduced Conolly, as a child, to drawing techniques used in engineering and architecture, an influence that remained evident in his paintings throughout his career. After this peripatetic life, they returned to Cork, where Thurloe attended Cork Grammar School.
The death of his father not long afterwards left the family without means of support and, after leaving school, Thurloe was employed as an assistant to Harold Leask, Inspector of National Monuments.
He moved on to the construction industry, working as an assistant engineer, while continuing to write poetry and paint in his spare time. Encouraged by his friends Elizabeth Rivers, Anne Yeats, Evie Hone and Ralph Cusack, Conolly began to paint full-time. His works from this period include Untitled (Peasants Dancing), a painting inspired by Naomi Mitchison's novel The Corn King and the Spring Queen (1931).
In 1942, along with Cusack and Yeats, Conolly painted stage sets for The House of Cards, a satirical comedy written by Frank Carney and inspired by Dublin's bohemian life. Produced by Shelah Richards at the Olympia Theatre, with music by Brian Boydell. Although the play was not a notable success, the discarded canvas backdrops were useful to Conolly who, due to war time shortages, had been unable to buy artists' canvas for his paintings.
He also collaborated with Boydell on a song cycle, The Feather of Death, premiered in 1944 at the Shelbourne Hotel. That same year he participated in the White Stag Exhibition of Subjective Art, organised by Margot Moffett. Around this time, his painting style had begun to change, the earlier softer Romantic approach giving way to a more disciplined geometric abstraction.
Conolly was part of the self-styled “Rathfarnham Academy of Surrealist Art”, a group that included Boydell’s sister Yvonne, Charles Acton and others. The group produced “Surrealoids”, narratives based on the “Exquisite Corpses” game of the Surrealists in France, where a composite story or play evolved, with contributions from each member.
In 1946, buoyed by the success of his first solo show, held at the Dublin Painters’ Gallery, Conolly married Yvonne Boydell. They were to have two sons, Simon and Berris.
Thanks largely to the support of Victor Waddington, the exhibition had been a sell-out and, four years later, his second solo show, at the Waddington gallery on South Anne Street, was equally successful.
In the years following, Waddington organised exhibitions in Boston, Chicago, Rhode Island and at the Willard Gallery in New York. Conolly also had a shared exhibition with Alan Davie in London.
Among the collectors acquiring his paintings were architect Walter Gropius and art historian Carola Giedion-Welcker, a friend of James Joyce.
Conolly regularly showed with the Irish Exhibition of Living Art, while also participating, in 1947 and 1948, in exhibitions at the Dublin Painters' Gallery. In the latter year, he won the Mainie Jellett Scholarship with his painting Reclining Figure and White Horse.
In 1953, at the request of Herbert Read, and with support from the Irish Arts Council, Conolly set up a “Design Unit for Ireland” office in Dublin. The co-directors included Senator Edward Maguire, Dermot O’Regan of CTT and Alan Nolan of the publishers Brown and Nolan. Essentially an Irish branch of DRU (Design Research Unit), a European design consortium founded by Herbert Read, Misha Black and Milner Grey, the Dublin office survived for several years before Conolly moved to London, to work with Read in the central DRU office.
In 1967 Conolly moved to France, setting up his own architectural and design practice near Bordeaux, before retiring in1995 to paint full-time.
Conolly is survived by his third wife Jacqueline, his sons Simon and Berris (by his first wife Yvonne), and daughters Louisa and Kira (by his second wife Maria, née Young – deceased), by 10 grandchildren and two great grandchildren.
Photo caption of Thurloe Conolly credit: Simon Conolly