1928 - 2011
We are sad to say Breon O'Casey died on the 22nd May 2011. This was during our fourth solo exhibition with Breon who has shown in Mullan gallery for ten years, since we opened in May 2001. His work is well-known to those who visit the gallery and although his paintings and sculptures are not currently for sale everyone is welcome to come and view those that remain in our care.
'Aphrodite', a 6' bronze sculpture is also available for all to see.
A selection of original prints is for sale in the gallery.
Breon's work tells us about his world, the things that were important to him and the environment in which he lived in Cornwall.
His words document this.
“Although I live in the country, I’m not a landscape painter. I find the landscape too difficult to control and arrange into any sort of meaningful pattern: not the wood, not the tree but the leaf: not the distant view but the hedge; not the mountain, but the stone. I have no windows in my studio, only skylights.
From the garden is the Tai Haku cherry tree; in the spring a mass of white blossom tinged with pale green and pink, in the summer a pattern of sturdy leaves, in the autumn as the leaves turn yellow then deep red, the whole garden is filled with a burnished golden light. Where is the need to look further? Look closely at the grim granite walls of the house and they are a feast of myriad colours – delicate pinks and ochres, a thousand different greys”
O’Casey was born in London in 1928 and moved to live and work in Cornwall in the mid 1950’s. He was a key figure in the St Ives group of artists and worked as an assistant to the sculptor Denis Mitchell (1959 – 1961) and Dame Barbara Hepworth. (1961-1963). He is the son of the playwright Sean O'Casey
Selected Exhibitions
1960 Amolfini, Bristol, solo
1968 Marjorie Parr Gallery, London
1975 Marjorie Parr Gallery, London
1977 Chastinet Gallery, London
1979 Oxford Gallery, Oxford
1982 Prescote Gallery, Banbury
1983 Kruger Gallery, New York, USA
1984 Helen Drutt Gallery Philadelphia, USA
1986 Helen Drutt Gallery, Philadelphia, USA
1988 Taylor Gallery, Dublin
1989 Helen Drutt Gallery, Philadelphia, USA
1991 Collier Campbell Gallery, London
1993 Taylor Gallery, Dublin
1995 St James’s Gallery Bath
1996 Black Swans Guild, Frome: (Touring Exhibition)
1997 Lynne Strover Gallery, Cambridge
1998 Helen Drutt Gallery, Philadelphia, USA
2000 Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin
2001 New Ashgate Gallery, Farnham, Surrey
2002 Peppercanister Gallery, Dublin
2003 Berkeley Square Gallery, London
Wexler Gallery, Philadelphia
2004 Peppercanister Gallery, Dublin
Mullan gallery, Belfast
2005 Yorkshire Sculpture Park
2006 Lemon Street Gallery,Truro
2006 Mullan gallery, Belfast
2008 Peppercanister Gallery, Dublin
Beaux Arts, Bath
2009 Mullan gallery, Belfast
2010 Peppercanister Gallery, Dublin
2011 Somerset House , London
2011 Mullan gallery Belfast
Selected Group Exhibitions
1959 onwards, Penwith Society of Arts, St Ives group
1970 Oxford Gallery, Oxford with Bryan Illsley
1992 Narrow water Gallery, Northern Ireland with Carolyn Mulholland
1992 International Handwerkmesse, Munich
1993 Taylor Gallery with Conor Fallon
1994 Schmuck Unsere Zeif, Zurich
1995 New Ashgate Gallery, Farnham
1997 Bridge Gallery, Dublin: The Irish Friends of Denis Mitchell
1999 Tate Gallery, St Ives with Bernard Leach
2000 Lynne Strover Gallery, Cambridge with Jim Partridge
2003 New Ashgate Gallery, London with Sir Terry Frost RA & Sandra Blow RA
2010 Beaux Arts, Bath
2011 Lynne Strover Gallery, Cambridge - with Stella Benjamin and Jim Partridge
2011 Mullan gallery Belfast
Public Collections
Arts Council of Great Britain
Arts Council of Northern Ireland
Arts Council of Ireland/ An Chomhairle Ealaion
Cornwall County Council
Crafts Council, London
Dartington Hall, Devon
Devon County Council
Goldsmith Hall London
Granada Television
Kettle’s Yard Cambridge
Kunstammulungen Der Vests, Coburg, Germany
Leeds Museum & Art Gallery
Plymouth Museum & Art Gallery
Royal Museum Of Scotland, Edinburgh
Tate Gallery
Somerville College, Oxford
Trinity College, Dublin
Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, London Victoria & Albert Museum, London
AIB, Ireland
Publications
Selected Poems, Maurice English, illustrated by Breon O’Casey, 1991
Stars are Sun, Poems by Scott Chaskey, Woodcuts by Breon O’Casey 1993
Man & Materials Breon O’Casey 1996
Breon O’Casey, Scolar Press, 1999
A Celtic Artist, Lund Humphries, 2003
Breon O’Casey, An anthology of his writings , Yorkshire Sculpture Park, 2005
Breon O'casey will be missed.
Mullan Gallery www.mullangallery.com
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