 The Fine Art Academy, Antwerp, painted in 1890,
shows a group of students in Verlat's life class attempting to paint a woman
and child who are modeling before them. Studies of male models hang in rows
on the wall in the background. The painting is painted in the an attractive
range of grays and blues, gray-greens, mauves and browns. The handling of
the figures of the students and models, and the rendering of light and shade,
demonstrate O'Brien's debt to the old master tradition rather than to the
innovative developments in French painting in his day. In the foreground
there are brushes, a knife, a palette, a dipper, a bottle and a paint rag,
each of which is initialled or monogrammed, probably by fellow students
or tutors. O'Brien signed and dated the picture in a vertical line, graffiti-like,
on the wall behind the models. |
Dermod O'brien was born in County Limerick in 1865. Unlike his Irish
comtemporaries, he did not study art in Dublin, but instead went to Paris
in 1886 to study the paintings at the Louvre, and the following year he
visited the galleries of Italy. In 1887, he enrolled at the Royal Academy
in Antwerp, one of the last Irish students to study there. He received a
solid academic training and follwed the advice of his master, Charles Verlat:
"Draw what you see, don't draw what isn't there." In 1891, O'Brien
left Antwerp and moved to Paris where he continued his studies at the Academie
Julian. He settled in London in 1893 and moved to Dublin in 1901 becoming
one of the leading portraitists in Ireland, the rival of Sarah
Purser. He was elected an associate of the RHA in 1906, a member
in 1907 and an honorary member of the Royal Academy, London in 1912.
