There are a number of reasons why the work of Basil Rakoczi is relatively little-known in Ireland. One explanation for his obscurity today is that he only spent six years in this country, although it was a period filled with activity which had lasting consequences on the other artists with whom he came into contact. And much of the painting for which he is now known was produced after he had left Ireland.
However, three of his pictures are on offer next week, one at the Whyte's art auction in the Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin on Monday night and two the following evening at the RHA Gallagher Gallery, where they are included in a De Vere's sale. The latter two both featured in an exhibition devoted to Rakoczi at the Gorry Gallery four years ago, when an excellent catalogue essay about the man and his work was written by S B Kennedy. The pair of pictures are lots 75 (Anne and Frankie in Fancy Dress) and 76 (Mermaid and Triton) and date from 1957 and 1960 respectively. The first of these, an oil, is, as Kennedy notes, highly cubist in style and combines heavy impasto with an almost complete flattening of the picture plane; it carries an estimate of £12,000-£16,000. Mermaid and Triton, on the other hand, has a much lighter touch in spirit and execution. Gouache on blue paper, the work still shows traces of cubism but greatly softened; the estimate here is £2,000-£3,000. By the time Anne and Frankie was painted, more than a decade had passed since Rakoczi left Ireland, although he continued to exhibit at the RHA until 1952. He had come to this country at the start of the Second World War, along with his friend and fellow artist Kenneth Hall, and after first spending some time near Leenane on Killary Harbour, they settled in Dublin.
Rakoczi's maternal grandfather is believed to have been Irish, so he had some connection here, but he had been born in London, where he first worked in the late 1920s as a commercial artist and designer.
However, his two principal interests were always to be painting and psychology and in 1935, together with another friend who came to Ireland, Herbrand Ingouville-Williams, he founded the Society for Creative Psychology and the White Stag Group, the latter "a brotherhood for the advancement of subjectivity in psychological analysis and art" according to Kennedy.
He and other members of his circle moved to Ireland at the outbreak of war. The country was intensely conservative and Rakoczi wrote back to a friend in England that "The public here seem dreadful for us, for art or lectures. Crowds come, but they laugh and sneer most of the time."
Nevertheless, he and the others persisted, holding a series of exhibitions under the White Stag Group name. Among those with whom they became associated was the Irish architect and artist Patrick Scott, as well as Mainie Jellett, Evie Hone and Nano Reid. Rakoczi was able to supplement his income by working as an analyst. In January 1944, they organised an Exhibition of Subjective Art in Baggot Street, Dublin and the following year a book called Three Artists was published; this examined the work of Rakoczi, Hall and Patrick Scott. The war over, the original members of the White Stag Group returned to England; Ingouville-Williams had died in March 1945 and in July 1946, Hall committed suicide. Rakoczi moved to Paris where he remained until he died in March 1979.
For many years, the White Stag Group was almost entirely forgotten here, until an exhibition of its various members' work was held at the European Modern Art gallery in Dublin in September 1991.
