Girl Hiding

Gerard Dillon’s Girl Hiding was painted during the mid-1950s, at a significant juncture in the artist’s career. The painting exemplifies his exploration of the idyll of Western Ireland, and the present work was executed at the culmination of a transitional, yet highly celebrated period. Girl Hiding is one of the last paintings from a series of figurative works set in Connemara, before the artist’s focus shifted toward abstraction. Born into a Nationalist Catholic family in Belfast, Dillon grew up during a period of political and religious upheaval, which effected both his personal and artistic outlook. Girl Hiding depicts a rural scene, likely painted in the coastal towns along the West Coast of Ireland, and perhaps even specifically Connemara, a location that Dillon repeatedly returned to for inspiration. Indeed, one of the primary attractions of rural areas such as this was that they were so distinctly separate from the conflict in the North of Ireland, and the remote coastal Isles gave him a feeling of having found a land free of the oppression he felt as a Nationalist living in an Ireland under British command.

Within this work we see the amalgamation of several themes previously explored by Dillon. A female figure dressed in blue dominates the foreground of the painting, engaging the viewer, whilst at the same time, she coyly looks from her hiding place behind a tree to where two young men ride across a beach on horseback. Her eminent interest in the figures and desire to interact with them seems at odds with her concealed position. A small bird is perched on her raised hand, a motif favoured by Dillon, which perhaps calls to mind the iconography of Saint Francis whom Dillon depicted several times, including in the painting St Francis. Whilst having minimal connection to Ireland, the Christian saint who was associated with animals and the natural world, seemed in keeping with the rural Irish scenes Dillon favoured at this time. As James White notes in his 1994 biography, the inclusion of a St Francis of Irish origins also ‘no doubt appealed to his sense of humour’, given Dillon’s full Christian name was ‘Francis Gerard’ (J. White, Gerard Dillon: An Illustrated Biography, Dublin, 1994, p. 59). To the right of the composition, two young men can be seen on horseback, looking in the direction of the concealed girl. These young country men, dressed in simple tunics are a common subject in Dillon’s earlier work, and recall the horse-riding figures from Omey Island to the West of Connemara, who Dillon included in a series of works painted between 1950 and 1951.

Full of energy and colour, in many ways Girl Hiding has an exceedingly modern feel. The brightly coloured fruit bowl in the foreground for example is highly modernist in depiction, with its bold delineated forms, and play on traditional perspective. However, Dillon also felt a deep connection to Ireland’s rich past. He was particularly interested in old stone carvings, such as the early medieval Celtic crosses at Monasterboice, and the Stone Age decorative etchings at Newgrange Tumulus, whose simple outlines resonated for Dillon with the air of simplicity surrounding the inhabitants of Connemara. Furthermore, in the rendering of the figures in Girl Hiding, Dillon skilfully balances a charming simple quality with a strong sense of narrative. Despite the developed storytelling here, there is also a sense of naivety in the artist’s observation, with no overpainting or tonal adjustment to give a sense of realism or increased perspective. White writes of an occasion where an outspoken friend remarked that a child may have painted some of Dillion’s pictures, to which the artist responded: ‘that is the greatest compliment you could pay me, I am always trying to see with a child’s innocence and sincerity’ (J. White, ibid., p. 59).