€3,000 - €16,000
Super Star Lot: A fabulous pair of original John Skelton (Irish b.1923 - d.2009) oil on board paintings titled 'Dancer at a Mirror' both dating to 1989. Features wonderfully lit study of a ballerina inspecting her pointe shoe. Rendered in short confident brushstrokes in blue and red tones. Signed John Skelton lower right. Along with 'The Red Curtain Bolshoi Dancer'. Features a Bolshoi dancer conveying a sense of movement and grace with the red curtains in background adding a vivid contrast to the composition. Rendered in fluid and expressive brushstrokes. Portrays a rich colour palette with striking reds with subtle hues of skin tones. The painting characterises a touch of golden yellow and soft whites. Signed lower right. Housed in matching decorative gilt and wood frame behind glass.
Both titled, signed and dated to verso.
Skelton's work has fetched €17000 at notable auctions such as Whytes and Adams.
MM: 65cm x 65 cm including frame.
Provenance from Dangan House, Foxrock, South Dublin.
Born in Co. Armagh in 1925 John Skelton studied at Queens University in Belfast, Belfast College of Art and St Martin’s School of Art, London. It was in London that he started his professional career and where he came under the influence of the Euston Road School in the late 1940s. He moved to Dublin in 1950 and worked initially in advertising as Art Director and illustrator of books, most of them educational. After 1975 he worked full-time as a painter. He had numerous one man shows in Dublin; two in Belfast, one in Los Angeles and one in the Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut. Up to the late 1980s, he was a frequent exhibitor in group shows, particularly the annual Royal Hibernian Academy and the Watercolour Society shows in Dublin. In later years however, his work was in such demand that he contributed to these less often. During the 1970s and early 1980s he earned a reputation as a gifted teacher and lecturer in the National College of Art and Design in Dublin.
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