Charles Brady, HRHA (1926 - 1997)
Charles Brady, HRHA
(1926 - 1997)
"Blue Notepaper"
Oil on paper, 13½” x 17”
(1926 - 1997)
"Blue Notepaper"
Oil on paper, 13½” x 17”
Charles Brady was born in New York in 1926. After serving time in the United States Navy, he returned to New York where he found work as a guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was while working as a museum guard, that he began to study art, taking classes with the painter John Groth, followed by evening classes at the Art Student’s League of New York. He also worked, at this time, with the abstract artist, Morris Kantor and first started to exhibit his paintings, with Martha Jackson, who had a gallery on East 66th Street. He held his first solo exhibition at The Urban Gallery, New York in 1955. His early paintings were figurative and his favoured subjects were mostly cityscapes and his surroundings in New York city, with park benches, pigeons and subway entrances, featuring prominently in his work. At this early stage in his career, he met and befriended many abstract expressionist artists, such as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline and Milton Resnick – who later became established as the New York School. Although, he was successful in establishing his name as an artist, his personal life was left in turmoil after losing his parents and his younger brother in a short space of time. Looking to escape from the stress of his life in New York, he decided to leave and in 1956 he visited Ireland for the first time. He returned to New York for a short period the following year but decided to make Ireland his home in 1959, and lived first in Galway, before moving to Dublin city and finally settling in Dun Laoghaire, on the southside of Dublin. His early paintings from Ireland are mostly small Irish country landscapes, painted in a semi-abstract style, and he was encouraged in his work by Irish artist Camille Souter and the Irish ceramicist, Philip Pearce. Brady’s style of painting underwent a major change in the 1960’s after he and his wife, Eelagh moved to Dun Laoghaire. He claimed that the fact that he wasn’t able to drive, cut him off from travelling out to the countryside to paint landscapes, and instead he chose to paint small still life paintings of objects from his immediate environment. Objects such as bus tickets, envelopes, a comb or a book of matches became the subject of his still life paintings, where he imbued these seemingly mundane and ordinary objects with a monumentality and a meditative stillness, in an attempt to inspire the viewer to notice the overlooked beauty in our everyday world.
Charles Brady was an influential figure in the history of Irish art, and alongside fellow artists, Eoin Walsh, Noel Sheridan and Patrick Pye (1929 - 2018) he was a founder member of an art collective, known as the Independent Artists. He also influenced a younger generation of Irish artists, as a teacher at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin from 1976 to 1983. In 1994 he was recognised for his contribution to art in Ireland, by being made an honourary member of the Royal Hibernian Academy.
Charles Brady was an influential figure in the history of Irish art, and alongside fellow artists, Eoin Walsh, Noel Sheridan and Patrick Pye (1929 - 2018) he was a founder member of an art collective, known as the Independent Artists. He also influenced a younger generation of Irish artists, as a teacher at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin from 1976 to 1983. In 1994 he was recognised for his contribution to art in Ireland, by being made an honourary member of the Royal Hibernian Academy.