He’s now in his 101st year and next week he will become the oldest living artist to have a painting auctioned in Ireland.
Derek Clarke, who was born in England on New Year's Eve, 1912, and now lives in Scotland, spent some of his formative years as an artist in Ireland immediately before and after the second World War.
He last visited Dublin in 2004 but is not expected to attend Adam's auction on Tuesday evening when his painting Connemara Family , dating from 1946, goes under the hammer with an estimate of €10,000-€15,000.
Clarke is the oldest member of the Royal Scottish Academy of Art. In January, it held a month-long celebratory exhibition of his career as a portrait and landscape painter.
He came to Ireland as a young artist in 1937 and spent time in Rossaveal, Co Galway, where he was startled to find that “None of the children had any English, but usually some older person could speak it, having returned from America to get married or to claim some property.”
Observing the clothing worn by the local people, he noted: “All the young children wore the petticoat and had cropped heads with a small fringe or forelock. I was given to understand that the inability to tell the difference between the girls and the boys was to safeguard against losing the boys for changelings. When the children first went to school the mother was given ‘the boot money’, but the children continued to pad to school on their beautifully shaped feet. The older boys wore knickerbocker suits, and the older lads, like the men folk, wore the báinín, a coat without lapels or buttons, made from white wool”.
Clarke’s artistic career was interrupted by the outbreak of the second World War and he returned to England, joined the British Army – the Durham Light Infantry – and served in Tunisia where he was shot in the spine.
He was granted a year's sick leave and returned to Ireland to convalesce in 1946, renting a cottage in Carraroe, Co Galway where he spent another year painting landscapes and people.
Changed tastes
Although some of the paintings were subsequently exhibited in London, they met little success because, according to the Scottish Academy, postwar London's "artistic tastes had changed radically" and "Bond Street galleries and their patrons were less interested in images of Irish peasants, than in the new vogue for Surrealism and Abstraction".
According to a written recollection by the artist: "One hot Sunday afternoon [in 1946], I was painting a watercolour and ran out of water. I went into the nearest house to ask for more. The whole family stood around the fireplace, staring at me exactly as for the desired painting; the composition was already completely determined for the painting Connemara Family . Father was at home dandling the baby. Mother was baking the daily loaf of soda bread in the pot oven".
According to Clarke’s recollection: “The eldest girl (on the far right) worked in a knitting ‘factory’, which employed a few girls, learning to knit jerseys in imitation of the ingenious Aran Island patterns. Her sister wears a dress sent by her cousin in America. The little boy in the foreground wears the petticoat. Those worn by the two sisters in the centre had been improved by their mother, who added collars and dyed them blue. The elder of the two had the reddest hair that I have ever seen, yet as dark as the sooty fireplace behind her. The image of the Sacred Heart above the mantelpiece, which was a feature of every house, was the apex of the composition. Thanks to their co-operation I was able to complete this painting in circumstances which I doubt if another artist has experienced.”
David Britton of Adam's auctioneers said the family depicted in Connemara Family were the McDonaghs of Carraroe and were parents Máirtín and Maggie, their sons Michael, Pádraic and Máirtín and daughters Bríd, Barbara, Peggy and baby Sarah. The fate and current whereabouts of the family is unknown but Britton said it was understood that most had emigrated to the US.
The auctioneers are hoping that surviving members of the McDonagh family in Ireland or overseas might see the painting which is on display in the St Stephen’s Green showroom from 2pm tomorrow.
