A new exhibition of folk art opened at the end of June in the National Museum of Ireland – Country Life, Turlough Park, Castlebar. The exhibition is composed of the country life paintings of Seán Ó Séadhacháin. These paintings were acquired by the National Museum of Ireland – Country Life in 2011 because they give a special insight into many of the farm and country life practices that are on exhibition in the Museum of Country Life. Seán Ó Séadhacháin grew up in west Limerick and spent a while working as a farm labourer in the West Kerry Gaeltacht in order to perfect his Irish. He emigrated to the USA in 1927 just before the Great Depression of 1929, where he worked for most of his life as a pharmacist.
He turned to painting late in life and forged his own style. The unique quality of the style is the capturing of iconic people and scenes from the Irish countryside. There is a sombre tone to the colour palette which powerfully conveys the very bog and soil and hues of the pre-electric house interior. Individuals emerge occasionally, but for the most part are subsumed into communal archetypes from the lost youth of an Irish emigrant. Tools and artefacts are often shown with precision. The whole collection is a virtual folk art representation of the great canons of Irish folklife – but in an appealing and unconventional way. Also of interest is that each painting’s frame has been coloured and individualised by the artist to suit each of the 23 paintings. This gives them a certain dramatic stage-set quality.
The paintings, which are displayed in a non-conserved state, will appeal to anyone interested in Irish history and in folk or ‘outsider’ art. The paintings give a fine insight into art as a means of personal expression, the making of something special from the apparently ordinary. The exhibition will run until the end of December 2012 and admission is free. The exhibition is open from Tuesday to Saturday from 10am and 5pm.
