David Hone RHA – distinguished painter who won widespread acclaim for his portraits and landscapes

Born: 1929

Died: 2023

The recent death of the artist David Hone (1929-2023), aged 94, years removes a strikingly handsome figure that used to be seen in the Dublin streets walking to his studio in Lower Baggot Street. David belonged to one of the most artistic families in Ireland going back to the 18th century and although he disliked any publicity, in later years, he became the president of the Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts from 1977 to 1982. He exhibited there from 1948 till 2019.

His career as an artist was highlighted by two exhibits both in London at the Royal Academy of Art in 1977 and one at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters.

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It must have been difficult for David being brought up in such an artistic milieu. His father Joseph Maunsell Hone was a well-known writer and critic and his relations included not only Evie Hone, the famed stained-glass artist but also Nathaniel Hone, the late 19th-century painter whose work can be seen in the National Gallery of Ireland.

As a young man, David had met painters like Augustus John and Paul Henry. He was taught by Sean Keating and Maurice McGonagle, to name a few, when he joined the art school in Kildare Street.

His landscape paintings captured the west of Ireland and the Gaeltacht with its illuminous clouds, and also memorable are his many paintings of the wonder of the Venetian landscape.

Among his paintings was one done in 1948 – a view of College Green from a house with high windows looking back at Trinity College and the Bank of Ireland with trams and people walking along the street – it might have been an Impressionist painting.

Making a living by art was difficult in Ireland in the 1950s. David was awarded a scholarship to travel to Italy, Spain and France and later thought of becoming an architect or doctor but gave up these pursuits and took up portrait painting which he soon succeeded in.

David was also a wonderful painter of children and any portrait of David’s caught the character of the person and was greatly treasured by their family.

His portraits of people included Archbishop and Primate of Dublin, the most Rev Donald Caird; Cardinal Cahal Daly; President Erskine Childers, Richard Atkinson Stoney, a past president of both the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and the Royal Academy of Medicine; Dr David Mitchell, past president of the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland; James Dillon, who was a leader of the Fine Gael party; the nationalist and republican Judge Diarmuid Fawsitt; Arthur Butler, the Bishop of Tuam; and the Very Rev JW Armstrong, the dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin.

A self-portrait of David Hone from 1965 hangs in the National Self-Portrait Collection of Ireland, in Limerick.

Long after our St Columba’s College days, we enjoyed visiting each other over the years and David loved coming down to Kerry and staying with us on our island at Parknasilla. When I came back from my decade of travels abroad, one of the first things that I did was to visit David’s studio.

He never liked exhibitions or talking about art. What gave him the greatest pleasure would be if a farmer came in and bought a painting, pulling money from his pocket to pay.

In his early thirties David married Rosemary D’Arcy and they lived in Sandymount. Although an intensely private man he enjoyed a little adventure.

He loved travelling on trains and train schedules, and the first time he crossed the Atlantic by liner he excitingly returned on the Concorde.

They raised three children, walked his beloved dogs on Sandymount Strand and he continued to paint well into his eighties.

This setting in Sandymount was the inspiration for many of his well-recognised paintings of the sea, sky, the Poolbeg stacks and life on the strand. David until the end of his career embraced the old academic art tradition and disliked many aspects of modern art.

David is survived by his wife Rosemary, his children Stephen, David, Edward and Juliet, his daughters-in-law Andra Bobart-Hone and Julie Hone, his son-in-law James Kenny and his six grandchildren Olivia, Clara, Alice, Harry and the twins Stevie and Jamie.