Burrishoole Lodge
Newport
Co Mayo
31/1/1940
Dear Tom,
How are you? And what are you doing now? Jack Yeats gave me your address when I was last in Dublin c/o of some bank or other,For some time after moving out of 17 Cheyne Gardens, and moving to 49 Harrington Road, MacGreevy received his post c/o Stanley Mann, Esq, 8 Holland Villas Rd, W.14note but I searched endlessly for that address later but couldn't find it. Then at Christmas I had the bright idea of writing to Lennox Robinson, who later sent your address on to me. I have a photograph of Irish sculpture for you to send. Then I injured my hand over 3 weeks ago and only yesterday could I write and I am getting this off before my hand gives out again.
Helen and I often talk of you here and wonder what you are up to, whether you are doing something you want to do or whether you are miserable because your mind cannot be properly used.In the late 1930s, through 1940 when MacGreevy returned to Ireland, he was chief art critic for the London-based fine arts magazine, The Studio. He also gave occasional lectures at the National Gallery. In late 1939 he assisted with the evacuation of paintings from the National Gallery to caves in Wales for safekeeping. note I think that is the greatest misery. Anyhow I know you can see an odd exhibition of painting in London or can visit the National Gallery; [p.1 verso]then I begin to feel sympathy for myself who cannot do that down here in Mayo. At the time of the MacGreevy/ O'Malley correspondence, O'Malley was living in Burrishoole Lodge, the O'Malley family country home. The house was probably built in the mid-nineteenth century on O'Malley family lands (athough not of the immediate family) and had a fifteenth century castle at the end of the lawn overlooking two piers on the Burrishoole River, across from the ruins of the historic Dominican Burrishoole Abbey.note
I had a few grand evenings with Jack Yeats when in Dublin. He's a grand fellow. Once I remember he talked of painting, it must have been a year ago or more, a very interesting technical and philosophical talk. I have asked Seamus O Sullivan if a bibliography could be prepared for the "Dublin Magazine" on the books he has helped to illustrate. I know of a few but I feel there must be many of them including early plays.
I have been reading Balzac steadily because I couldn't use my pen. Here in winter it seems easy to read him. He has a soft spot for military men, also his short passages about their prowess shows the latent sense of military pride which every Frenchman has. And the real passion very often is not love but revenge. "Cousin Bette" balances love and revenge fairly well. He is very unlike our present writers who cut down quickly or suggest the character in few enough strokes. I suppose Balzac was more like Holbein who had the ultimate conception in finish back in his brain unlike say Dufy who has no sense of continuous finish but conceives [p.2 recto]quickly & rapidly on a primary impression. Each, I suppose is a different genre almost.
This year, rather last year there was a show of contemporary painting in Clare St by a new art shop — Longford.The Jack Longford Contemporary Picture Galleries in South Leinster Street (not Clare Street) Dublin was founded in 1938 by John Manning Longford and his partner, Deirdre McDonogh. The exhibition O'Malley refers to was opened by Dermod O'Brien in October 1939 and was entitled A Loan and Cross-Section Exhibition of Contemporary Paintings.note Amongst the artists were:
-
Derain
Vlaminck
Dietz
Kisling
Gris
Bonnard
Braque
Dufy
Gleizes
L'Hote
Not of very great quality but interesting: for me the most interesting part of it were the people I met there.
Then Nora McGuinness had a show which I did not see but I saw some of the work that she was sending in. She has grown a good deal since she went to America: and I like her. Mainie Jellett who gave a very good talk Jellett gave one of four lectures during the month of October in conjunction with A Loan and Cross-Section Exhibition of Contemporary Paintings. Her talk was entitled The Influence of Contemporary French Painting. Louis MacNeice, George Furlong (the Director of the National Gallery of Ireland), and Edward McGuire gave the other lectures. note during the exhibition in (Contemporary) had a show as well, but it was not good.Jellett had a solo exhibition in Dublin which opened in late November 1939note It's like AE's poetry there is some essential human passion and warmth left out. In her case there is the definite sense that a man is needed. Jack Yeats had a show:Held at the Jack Longford Contemporary Picture Galleries, it was Yeats's first solo exhibition in Dublin since 1931.note I saw a good number of his pictures before they were hung. He told me that the pictures had been as well hung as they had ever been in any show of his. That also I missed. Nanno Reid,In November 1939 Reid had a solo exhibition at the Gallery at 7 St. Stephen's Green, Dublin. note who showed some promise, had a show also but she needs the same stimulus as I have suggested for another painter. This judgment is of course [p.2 verso]in terms of things Irish, yet there were fine exhibitions worth going to see in the space of five weeks.
Have you been doing any translation? If you are translating a man whom you like well it is not so onerous. I was translating Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet" from the French until I heard that Auden was to do it in America so I stoppedThere is no translation of Letters to a Young Poet by Audennote. Can you give me the names of any good French modern novels or books to read as I am lazy enough about French unless the book is very good; also a life of Balzac. I don't know if there is one in English; if so I have never come across it.
This letter certainly is a thought from Helen and I to show that we remember and think of you and to wish we had you for a chat around one of our turf fires. War is far away from us here yet we feel what other peoples are going through at the moment; and we sense that we will be pulled in somehow when it reaches the general stage.
affectionately
Ernie