• Kathryn Milligan
  

• Patrick Leonard
  

• 
  Winter 2023
  Volume 40. No. 4

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‘One can always identify a Leonard painting by the sudden unexpected splash or two of extremely brilliant colour… It is this flair for applying that luminous red headscarf or twinkling yellow street lamp in just the right place within the picture area that gives his paintings that extra special quality.’ So wrote Bl​áithín Ó Cíobháin in the Irish Press in 1979, on the occasion of Patrick Leonard’s solo exhibition at the Oriel Gallery, Dublin. This exhibition marked something of public return for the artist. Although Leonard had firmly established his credentials in the earlier part of the century, he suffered from ill health throughout his life, including serious bouts of pneumonia and then tuberculosis – which, as his daughter recalled in 2007, led eventually to his having half a lung removed. Leonard’s recurrent illness gave rise to economic difficulties, with the artist taking teaching jobs at various schools in and around Dublin, yet he returned to artistic practice, undeterred even by the eventual loss of vision in one eye. Throughout his career, Leonard captured the daily life of north county Dublin, particularly the coast around Rush and Skerries, as well as making forays into the city centre to show its theatres and nightlife. Characteristically bright and colourful, his paintings still evoke the sunshine and glamour to be found in everyday life. Familiar to those interested in 20th-century Irish art, Leonard’s work also raises questions about how we might begin to assess the contribution and impact of representational artists who came to prominence in the middle of that century.

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