A Ballad of Jonathan Wade

A motor-bike accident on a frosty road near Clondalkin in Dublin on 22nd January, 1973, deprived Ireland of one of its most original artists. Jonathan Wade was just 31 years old at the time, but he had already produced work of such amazing quality and variety that he was looked to as a future towering figure in Irish art. It was more than his mastery of painting that impressed: he manifested in his paintings a personal vision that was a scathing critique of the human being and of the environment he engineered. Despite his coruscating vision, the paintings themselves exuded an extraordinary visual beauty, a combination that only the greatest artists have achieved. So highly was he regarded at the time of his death that an immediate retrospective of his work was mounted at the Library in Trinity College. Smaller exhibitions followed. Yet the intervening years have seen this artist sink into undeserved obscurity, chiefly because those who own his paintings seldom offer them for sale. The event, ‘A Ballad of Jonathan Wade’ in The New Theatre, and this accompanying book, intend to reacquaint the public with one of the most exciting painters of the last century.

A Ballad of Jonathan Wade

ISBN 9781-916075368, price €12.00

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