Aegean Island

Aegean Island is one of several paintings of islands made by William Crozier in 1994-95 whose inspiration was a fusion of a brief trip to the Aegean islands in 1993 and the familiar islands where he lived by Roaring Water Bay, off the coast of West Cork. Crozier wrote ‘To my mind the scenes were interchangeable and I painted many of these islands, giving them a dual nationality, a shared history. Making Athenians and Spartans out of O’Driscolls and McCarthys’ (Crozier archive. MS. No. 25). Crozier’s island subjects are totemic. He explained ‘They are the perfect subject for my emotional and intellectual concerns. These are a condition of exile, a sense of loss, a love of the sea and a longing for the horizon’. (Crozier archive. MS. No. 25a)

We are very grateful to Katharine Crouan for her assistance with the cataloguing of this lot.