Micheal Farrell – The Life and Work of an Irish Artist David Farrell The Liffey Press, Dublin, 2006 pp 214 fully-illustrated h/b €29.95 ISBN 1-904148-89-1 Brian Bourke The best way to honour an artist is to reproduce their work. There are thirty-two good reproductions in this book with interesting references to them. Otherwise the book is a narrative of woeful behaviour, domestic chaos and bad luck. Poverty and domestic chaos are twins. For the artist it seems to be endemic. In this Michael Farrell was not alone. If it were not for the reproduction of the work it would be a miserable saga. Micheal Farrell was an extraordinary craftsman. It is possible to be a good craftsman and a lousy artist. In Michael Farrell’s case the craft was the thread of his art. The core, the means by which he could return to work again and again after hammer blows that would have felled many others. Farrell shared his studio with me in Cardet for a short period. I watched him working while pretending not to. He had prepared a very large long canvas. He made a cartoon on paper the same size as the canvas. He then used tracing paper and traced the whole design onto the canvas. It seemed to me be too painstaking. Why not execute the drawing directly on to the canvas? It took me a while to realise that this was a very important ritual, an exercise in contemplation to achieve quietude, which he seemed incapable of at other times. In his work he was cool and focused. His skills and draughtsmanship allowed him to work in any medium. His etchings were as masterful as his paintings. As to the problem of his domestic life, hard though it might have been, the dynamics of it could also have been a spur to his creativity and necessary for him. The artist might go from chaos to calm contemplation while working but it might be the chaos that puts the elemental fire into the work. Tony O Malley called it ‘The Rat’. I did not find his early Neo-Celtic paintings at all interesting. He seemed to be flattering a few art patrons in a petty insular jealous art world of Dublin at the time (it is bigger now). But even in these works there was an interesting waywardness. Teaching together in the life drawing classes at Trinity College Dublin, I realised that what Michael and I had in common was a love of work or rather and more importantly, a love of getting work done. This is what sustained Michael. This biography by Micheal’s brother David is painfully honest. This book is an act of brotherly love. The landscape of Cardet and his life with Meg was the happy ending. We can sigh with relief. Brian Bourke is an artist and a member of Aosdána.