Riann Coulter evaluates the exchange of ideas and shared interests of Nano Reid and Gerard Dillon at the Highlanes Municipal Art Gallery, Drogheda
In August 1950 Gerard Dillon wrote to his friend, the Australian art historian Bernard Smith, that ‘Nano Reid was a great loosening influence in my work – I love her way of painting very much (tho’ I hope the influence isn’t too obvious)’.¹ Dillon need not have worried. The paintings for which he is known, attractive scenes of life in the west of Ireland, painted in bright colours and a quasi-naïve style, have little in common with Reid’s expressive compositions characterised by a palette of muddy hues of green and brown. Although Dillon and Reid were close friends and often painted together, few critics have commented on the influences, affinities and friendship shared by these two pillars of Irish modernism
On the eve of his show at the Hunt Museum, Limerick, in Winter 2009 Joseph McBrinn considered the unique aesthetic Rudolf Heltzel has brought to jewellery design.
