John Luke’s work is often considered arcane; but an exhibition planned for 2012 drawing on his early paintings and works on paper, seeks to clarify, writes Dickon Hall
John Luke is arguably the most ambiguous figure in Irish art and his work more mysterious and impenetrable than any other major artist working in Ireland in the 20th century. Despite the fact that Luke lived in Ulster for almost all his life and drew much of his subject matter from the local landscape, he does not fit comfortably within a local or more broadly Irish tradition in painting. Luke himself wrote that Irish art had ‘no recognisable national trait and tradition’. Without any obvious local context in which it can be seen, Luke’s work has become more difficult to understand and his own disinclination to discuss meaning in his work, as well as an overemphasis on his fascination with technique, has clouded appreciation of his achievement.
Ireland’s most highly regarded architectural émigré is the subject of a new publication and a USA-based exhibition; Ellen Rowley looks at his legacy