THE WORK OF OISIN KELLY
The sculpture of Oisin Kelly springs directly from the intellectual position he adopted about the position of the artist in society: this was that the artist - craftsman provided what society demanded of such a person, which is another way of saying that he rejected in his life and work, the artist as the self-indulgent exploiter of personality, which was the prevailing ethos of the art world around him.
Rather he looked back to a time when the artist-craftsman in accepting a commission would bring to the task his expertise in the medium chosen together with the heightened quality of his own imagination and sensitivity and in thus fulfilling a need, he also fulfilled his own sense of the integrity and social value of the craftsman. This meant that he looked back primarily to the age when this was the accepted position of the artist. And being where he was and who he was by race and belief this meant almost inevitably the era of the early Irish Church, the Romanesque monuments of which lie scattered throughout this island. This was then the total position from which his life and work sprang, which was perhaps more overtly expressed by his rejection of the gallery system. He didn't have a gallery - dealer, with an exclusive call on his output; nor did he have one-man exhibitions at which his work was offered for sale. For while there would be the odd work shown in a group show, usually the Living Art, or the RHA, this was of works made for himself that might perhaps interest a collector, but primarily he preferred to provide for someone's or some body's need. He would then know the venue and purpose of the work before he started and this brought to the eventual piece, not just his own expression and craftsmanship, but also the contribution of the society in which he lived and he preferred to serve. A work commissioned by a church would be different to that of a trade union but all would encompass all elements: that of the provider, artist and the corporate; the different elements feeding each other; the personal and society. Inevitably since he accepted commissions from whatever source offered, the result could at times reflect the compatibility or otherwise with his temperament of the commission : its purpose, its materials, its siting; so that the outcome would reflect these variables. Many of these commissions of course came his way from churches; many new ones were being built, nearly all by architects familiar with and sympathetic to Kelly's work, which they felt suited their designs, while the clergy were now much more knowledgeable and open to modern expressions in art. And of course if its expression also looked back, as Kelly's did, to the early Irish church and its monuments, the result was that much more sympathetic to the patriotism, as much as to the new spirit of the church - and maybe even of the state!
Another extension of this position was that he did not readily accept that sculpture could deal only with the human form or abstract shape. He did not shirk the illustrative if he found that this gave the spur, so there are groups of hurlers, footballers, dancers, stiff in their Irish steps, birds still or in flight (these last have since been much plagiarised by lesser talents). Indeed, he did not stop even at the anecdotal as in the well known figures gazing skywards, originally intended for Liberty Hall but now in front of the county headquarters in Cork. For me, the most memorable of these "unsculptural" works is the series of "Cloud on Nephin" to which my first reaction was "well that does not work, landscape is not suitable for sculpture". This remained my judgment until the next time I was gazing at that magic mountain when to my astonishment, the sculpture immediately sprang into my imagination and the remembered work fed further my appreciation of the scene before me. On our last meeting I mentioned to Oisin my having seen the work and my reactions to it and he said that what he would really like to do was to emulate in sculpture the well-known hundred views of Mount Fuji by Hokusai. But it was unfortunately not to be.
This range of expression was paralleled and fuelled by the extraordinary range of mediums he employed. While many of these were used to suit the particular commission: incised stone for the facade of a church, cast bronze for a presentation statuette, carved wood for a votive statue, cast aluminium for a troupe of marchers, bronze and stone for public monuments, plaster for an edition of an image, pottery when he found himself visiting his friends in Terrybaun, all were shaped to the purpose in hand, and all were finely attuned to both expression and their inherent qualities.
For all his looking back to the Irish Romanesque and the age of the predominance of the artist-craftsman, he was constantly curious about the art of his time and was always eager to hear about and see the latest changes taking place. I think he would have rejected, as I do, the word "developments" and what this implies of progress; rather and above all he was anxious to know of the latest manifestations of the questing young.
His ability and willingness to turn his expression to fields outside those generally thought of as the sculptural became particularly noticeable when he joined Kilkenny Design as a consultant which resulted in a number of designs of which the best known through reproduction are of the tea towels with designs based on high cross reliefs. Again he was commissioned, he provided what was demanded, it was clear, decorative, but still always within his idiom, and typically using his favourite motif. Remote it must have been from his usual field, but the craftsman had again fulfilled his function.
From this it will be clear that, while Kelly's sculpture would venture into the almost topical interpretation of his observation of the life around him, his Christian belief, his interest, even narrative, the interplay of forms for themselves whether abstract or even human had marginal interest. With him the emphasis throughout must be human rather than just humanistic. So the grand interplay of forms, the juxtapositioning of shapes of one against the other, the rhythms of forms within themselves were for him bereft of the essential ingredient of relevance to life and its activities. For this reason it does not appear that the year he spent studying under Henry Moore had much subsequent effect on his work. He opted for another place and another purpose of expression.
This is not to say he could not achieve the monumental - which is basically the making of a monument - but his is always a sculpture of response rather than just form. This is shown very vividly in what must be his best known work "The Children of Lir" in the Garden of Remembrance in Parnell Square in Dublin. It is wonderfully designed to be viewed in the round so that as one circles it the symbolic narrative is imaginatively eloquent. The falling figures in the front culminate in those at the side where the liberated swans swirl up into the air with all the extravagance of the baroque while remaining vivid, real, relevant; the exuberance of taking on a new freer life. Here, the subject once decided was a particular challenge necessitating much preliminary pondering and drawing. Again the work, eloquent and symbolic, fulfils its purpose and position and lyrically completes the somewhat rigid overdesigned setting.
This combining in a commission of the required figure or symbol and the artist's own response is again particularly remarkable in his crucifix for St. Andrew's Church in Westland Row, where he showed a contemporary everyday figure outstretched on the cross. The reference to a person of today, instead of the conventional figure, strengthened by its relevance the whole iconographic content of the work. Perhaps all this was too much for those in charge in the church since the work has not survived in the place for which it was intended - over the main altar - and has now been replaced by a somewhat anonymous and grimy painting.
Looking at the variety and range of Oisin Kelly's work one can easily imagine the man; it is almost a conversation, with him eloquent on the range of his interests, his thought, his allegiances, his attitude to life and living. An anecdote may help: once while visiting me, in the course of the evening, I said, "What about some music?" Lovely" he replied, but on my reaching for a record, he added disdainfully "Oh no, not canned". That was Oisin. He preferred making.
Desmond MacAvock
Oisin Kelly - a Biography
Oisin Kelly was born on 17th May 1915 in Dublin, the son of William Kelly, principal of James's Street National School, and his wife Elizabeth (née McLean). He was actually christened Austin Ernest William Kelly, and did not acquire the name "Oisin" until his schooldays, when a teacher mistakenly gaelicized "Austin" as "Oisin" rather than "Oistin". His sister Doreen was born in 1917.
He first attended his father's school in James's Street, and went on in 1926 to Mountjoy School where he did well in English and Irish. From early childhood he also displayed an aptitude for drawing and painting. With the intention of securing an Irish sizarship to Trinity College, Dublin, he spent some time near An Spideal in Conamara. He hugely enjoyed his stay in the Gaeltacht, and often described it as one of the formative experiences of his life. Thereafter he retained a deep affection for the people, culture and landscape of the West of Ireland.
He entered Trinity College in 1933, and studied French and Irish. He attended night courses at the National College of Art in Kildare Street, and became especially proficient in the art of printing from woodcuts. He also did some modelling in clay: one of his earliest surviving works is a painted terra cotta group showing his paternal grandparents with their six sons and two daughters, entitled "The Peeler's Family".
He emerged from Trinity College with a B.A. in French and Irish, and went on a travelling scholarship to Frankfurt-am-Main. He attended the Frankfurt School of Art , and developed a particular interest in twentieth-century German sculpture, being greatly influenced by the wood-carving of Barlach. An attack of kidney-stones forced his premature return to Ireland, and to the problem of finding a job. In later years, he sometimes wondered at his automatic choice of school-teaching as a career -- following in his father's footsteps --and expressed regret that he had not studied architecture, a profession with which he had much contact when working as a sculptor.
His first full-time teaching job was at Clones High School in Co. Monaghan, where he stayed for two years. In 1942 he married Ruth Gwynn, who was a veterinary surgeon. She was a daughter of the Irish scholar E. J. Gwynn, Provost of Trinity College from 1927 to 1937. They moved to Waterford, where Oisin obtained employment in Bishop Foy School. In the School of Art in Waterford he received lessons in wood-carving from Robert Burke. In 1946 the couple returned to Dublin to live with Ruth's widowed mother in a large rambling house near Tallaght, Co. Dublin, since demolished to make way for the Southern Cross motorway. Oisin set up a workshop in the yard, and gradually expanded his artistic activities. Here he and Ruth reared their family, Fergus, Benjamin (died 1962), Daniel, Piccola, Siobhan, Caitriona, and David.
He joined the staff at St. Columba's College, Rathfarnham, and stayed there for eighteen years. He was exceptionally happy at this school, where he was originally employed to teach Art, French and Irish. He also became involved in the teaching of English, though without formal qualifications in this field, and ultimately became senior English master. Decades later, many of his pupils still retain vivid memories of the wisdom, iconoclastic vigour and sheer entertainment provided in his English classes. Among the pupils who went on to make names for themselves in the world of art were the stained glass artist Patrick Pye, the stone engraver Michael Biggs, and the painter Brett McEntaggart.
During his first years at St. Columba's, Oisin produced many fine heads of pupils and staff-members in wood, plaster and terra cotta. Life at the school provided him with a number of themes. His humorous terra cotta "Masters in Chapel" portrays Oisin and two other begowned masters slouched in their pews as if listening to a long and tedious sermon. A plaster relief shows the school orchestra, with Oisin playing the violin in the foreground.
In 1947-48 he got two terms' leave to study under Henry Moore at the Chelsea Polytechnic. In spite of Moore's reputation as an abstract sculptor, it is interesting to record that in his classes he taught absolute fidelity to life and concentrated on anatomy and the realistic representation of the human form. On his return to Ireland, Oisin's interests seem to have become more traditional, and in particular turned towards Irish themes. For example, in 1949 he did a dramatic representation of "Mad Sweeney", taking this theme from the twelfth-century Irish tale Buile Shuibhne. Another aspect of Irish culture to which he returned again and again in the '40s and '50s was traditional dancing. He completed dozens of studies of Irish dancers - singly or in groups - in wood, pottery and bronze.
In the late '40s his talents started to be recognised in the market-place, and his notebooks record the sale of various works. He exhibited in the Irish Exhibition of Living Art, of which he was elected a committee member in 1951. His colleagues in the Living Art group included the painters Nano Reid, Anne Yeats, Norah McGuinness, Gerard Dillon, George Campbell, Fr. Jack Hanlon, and the sculptress Hilary Heron, a close personal friend whose work he particularly admired. It was at about this time that he began to get Church commissions. Prominent among his early clerical patrons was the Society of Jesus, and in 1951 he completed stained wooden statues of St. Aloysius Gonzaga and St. Joseph and Child for St. Francis Xavier's Church in Gardiner Street, Dublin.
His earnings from such commissions enabled him in 1956 to fulfil a lifelong ambition by buying a cottage in the West of Ireland. He had no previous family or other links with Co. Mayo, but was on friendly terms with Grattan and Madeleine Freyer, who ran Terrybaun Pottery near Pontoon. The Freyers heard that a cottage in Upper Massbrook with a magnificent view across Levalley Lough towards Nephin mountain was for sale, and put him in touch with the owner. The cottage was in such a remote location that the area was nicknamed "Canada".
Oisin went to Massbrook every school holiday -- winter, spring, and summer -- and derived huge enjoyment from restoring the cottage and visiting neighbours in the evenings. He formed a particularly warm friendship with Annie and John Maloney and their family. He had little time to do artistic work while staying at the cottage, but filled many notebooks with sketches which he worked up later. For example, the mountain opposite inspired his "Cloud on Nephin", which he cast in bronze from polystyrene in 1969. A nearby stream gave him the idea for his "Mountain Stream" in copper wire, and he made a delightful ceramic model of a donkey from the neighbourhood. His bronze "Turf-Cutter" no doubt owes something to his own experience with a loy on his turf-bank at Massbrook. He also regularly decorated plates for Terrybaun pottery with slip-trailed designs.
The cottage brought out the latent architect in Oisin, and he devoted much energy to expanding and rebuilding it with the assistance of his family. One of his earliest enterprises was the erection nearby of a sleeping hut, constructed from old timber which was being thrown out at St. Columba's College. It survived for many years before being finally demolished by a winter gale. More enduring was the repair work which he carried out on the field-walls of the property, and he used to marvel at the strength and industry of the people who originally built them. His love for Mayo was shared by his wife and children, who enjoyed many magical holidays while staying at the cottage. The immediate area around Massbrook is of such interest and beauty that he rarely felt the need to travel far afield. However he liked to visit the ruined abbeys of West Mayo, and regularly drove to the sea at Ballycastle.
With much regret Oisin resigned from St. Columba's College in 1964, and was appointed to the part-time post of artist-in-residence in the Kilkenny Design Workshops. Here he contributed designs for a wide range of products. Thus he designed the silver statuette "St. Patrick's Breastplate" presented to Pope John Paul 11 in 1979, which was made by the silversmith Desmond Byrne. He was particularly proud of a series of dishcloths, each of which illustrated an Irish proverb. Another successful series consisted of ceramic birds, including a raven, a snowy owl, a tern, gannets on a rock, and various types of duck.
The last decade of his life was dominated by large State commissions in addition to his work in Kilkenny. In 1971 his "Children of Lir" was unveiled as the centrepiece of the Garden of Remembrance in Parnell Square, Dublin. In the same year he completed a statue of Roger Casement in handcuffs, but it was not erected at Banna Strand, Co. Kerry, until 1984. His statue of Jim Larkin in a familiar oratorical pose was unveiled in O'Connell Street in 1977. His "Two Working Men" was originally commissioned for Dublin, but - after a number of years in storage - it was loaned to Cork. The exiled Dublin pair now gaze up at the Cork County Hall. Another major commission was the "Chariot of Life" for the Irish Life Centre, Lower Abbey Street, Dublin. He suffered a major heart-attack while working on the construction of the full-size plaster model for this piece. However, he made a fair recovery, and managed to get the plaster ready to be handed over to the Dublin Art Foundry. He suffered another heart-attack in October 1981, and died at the age of sixty-six, four months after his wife Ruth. The "Chariot of Life" was unveiled the following summer.
He had also been working on a statue of the harpist Turlough Carolan for Mohill, Co. Leitrim. With great care and sensitivity, the unfinished plaster model was prepared for casting by Lorna Skrine, who had been his assistant before his death. The finished bronze was unveiled in Mohill by President Hillery on 10th August 1986.
Fergus Kelly
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