(b Dublin, Nov 27, 1936).
Irish painter, sculptor and printmaker. He studied at the National College of Art in Dublin and St Martin’s School of Art and Goldsmith’s College in London. His early paintings, which included landscapes such as Winter (c. 1966; Dublin, Allied Irish Bank) and life-size nude self-portraits, were indebted to German Expressionism and to the work of Alberto Giacometti in their warm-toned colours and loose application of paint or pastel. These were followed by painted and sculpted portraits of his wife and friends in bronze or fibreglass, such as Head of L.T. (1971; Dublin, Dawson Gal.). From 1971 he concentrated on a recurring image of a small, primitive sculpture as a sign for himself, reduced in mocking fashion to a formalized bust or head. He related this fascination with identity to the character of Don Quixote, for example in the painted wood sculpture Don Quixote (1980–81; Dublin, Allied Irish Bank); sometimes he conceived of this image as two selves, as in the etching ...