Dated Biography

1916 Born in Dublin of Irish parents.
1926/33 Educated at St. Gerard's School, Co. Wicklow. Family friendly with W.B. Yeats and family.
1934/38 Studied chemistry at Trinity College, Dublin. Worked in family business, Greenmount Oil Company. Frequent visits to National and Municipal Galleries.
1938 Left Ireland. First marriage to Jean Stoney. Studied art at National Gallery, London, at the Louvre in Paris and the Prado Collection on loan to Geneva. Settled in Menton, France
1939 Studied Venetian painting at Venice. Embarks on the First Works. Birth of daughter Seyre. Southern Window, purchased by Haverty Trust for the Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin, painted in Menton.
1940 Returned to Ireland. Contributed Madrid at Geneva, Dublin Magazine, Sept. Made a series of surgical drawings of Pituitary region of the brain for medical text books.
1941 Girl in White, purchased for Ulster Museum, Belfast, painted at 13 Merrion Row, Dublin (Paul Henry's old studio). Set and costume designs for Dublin Drama League, Gate Theatre. Frequent visits to Jack B. Yeats' studio.
1942 Set and costume designs for Giraudoux' Amphitryon 38, OlympiaTheatre, Dublin. The painting Spanish Shawl, Study in White, rejected by R.H.A..
1943 Further painting rejected by R.H.A.. Founder-member, with Mainie Jellett and Evie Hone, of Irish Exhibition of Living Art. Refused important portrait commissions. Designed stained glass, murals for pubs, theatre sets and costumes. Lectured on colour inter-relation to the Dublin University Experimental Science Association. Attended Erwin Schrödinger's lectures on genetics at T.C.D. Befriended by Schrödinger, much impressed by his philosophical ideas.
1944 Studied Megalithic engravings by candle light at Newgrange, Co. Meath.
1945 Met the art dealer Charles Gimpel. Radio Eireann debate with Sean Keating, P.R.H.A., on contemporary painting. Visited Mayo, Connemara, Achill and the Midlands encountering the Travelling People. Began Traveller series of paintings.
1946 Contemporary Art Society purchased work for The Tate Gallery, London. Left Ireland for London. Joined Gimpel Fils Gallery. Improvised studio in a bed-sitter in York Street, off Baker Street, Marylebone. Began Tinker Woman with Newspaper.
1947 Studio, Clarewood Court, Crawford Street, Marylebone. Finished Tinker Woman with Newspaper. Met Polish painter Jankel Adler (d.1949). Visiting Teacher in Painting and Mural design at Central School of Arts & Crafts, London.
1948 .Joined Graham Sutherland and Stanley Spencer in designing tapestries for Edinburgh Weavers.
1949 Visited Paris.
1950 Studio in Holly Hill, Hamstead (converted garage)
1951 Began Family series of Paintings. Official donation of A Family, rejected by Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin. Met Francis Bacon.
1952 Studio in 3 Albert Studios, Battersea. Designed Eden series of tapestries. A Family caused Dublin controversy.
1953 Designed large mosaics for College of Further Education, Merthyr Tydfil, Wales.
1954 Visits to Cologne and Rhineland. Engraved `Megalithic' murals, Comprehensive School, Tulse Hill, London. Visiting Tutor, Textile School, Royal College of Art, London.
1955 Commissioned by Ambassador Magazine, London, toured Spain noting impressions for textile designs.
1956 Visited Venice. Encountered Giacometti and his sculpture. A Family, awarded a major prize at the Venice Biennale. Contributed Thoughts on our Time and Jean Lurcat, Art 17, Royal College of Art, London. Met the young painter, Anne Madden.
1957 Began Presence series of paintings. Venetian Glass Mosaic for St. Ignatius Church, Galway, Commissioned by the architect Michael Scott.
1958 Visited Brussels. Married Irish painter Anne Madden. Left London to work in France. Studio in Bargemon in the Var.
1959 Studio at Morges, Switzerland. Woman, 1959 purchased by the Tate Gallery, London
1960 Moved to Carros in the Alpes Maritimes. Studio in Carros. Elected Fellow of The Society of Industrial Artists in recognition of his contribution to industrial design.
1961Visited Zurich. Birth of son, Alexis.
1962 Joined the Dawson Gallery, Dublin. Awarded Honorary Litt. D., University of Dublin.
1963 Destroyed some forty paintings, a years work. Member, Irish Council of Design. Birth of son, Pierre.
1964 Discovery of Polynesian decorated skulls at the Musée de l'Homme, Paris. Began Ancestral Head series of paintings. Board Member, Kilkenny Design Workshops.
1965 Discovery of Celto-Ligurian culture of Entremont & Roquepertuse. First images of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett.
1967 Visited Belfast.
1966 50th year. Retrospective exhibition, Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin.
1968 Paintings of Celto-Ligurian Entremont.
1969 Death in air crash of his wife's sister Vivian and husband. First paintings of heads on dark backrounds. Lithographic illustrations for Thomas Kinsella's Tain, commissioned by Liam Miller, Dolmen Press.
1970 First images of his father. Commission. The Hosting of the Tain, Aubusson Tapestry, 407 x 610 cms
1971 Visited New-York.
1972 Began Cuchulainn series of Tapestries. First studies of fruit.
1973 Death of mother, Sybil.
1974 First of regular visits to the Beara Penninsula, initiating a long series of landscape watercolours.
Visited Turin.
1975 Began series, Images of W.B. Yeats. Commission. Aquatint for Nobel Prize Portfolio, Börjeson, Malmö. Made Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur.
1976 Right arm in plaster due to broken scaphoid, paints three months with left hand. Death of father, Albert.
1977 Visited Edinburgh. Made seven bronze Foreheads of Lorca at Michaelucci Foundry, Montecatini.
1978 Visited Barcelona, Madrid and Granada. Series of Images of Lorca. Lectured at University of Toronto on his painting and its sources. Met Samuel Beckett.
1979 First Images of Bacon. Notes on Painting and Awareness, lecture in symposium, Corps, Poésie, Peinture, Faculté des Lettres, Université de Nice.
1980 First Images of Seamus Heaney.
1981 Series, Images of Shakespeare. Joined Taylor Galleries, Dublin. Collotype lithographs for Eight Irish Writers, edited by Andrew Carpenter, Dublin. Visited Florence and Sienna.
1982 International group of artists form Artists against Apartheid. Contributed, Image of Nelson Mandela.
1983 First Images of Picasso.
1984 Reverted to Procession Series
1986 Lithographs for James Joyce's Dubliners, Dolmen Press, Dublin.
1988 Lithographs for Samuel Beckett's valedictory book, Stirrings Still, Blue Moon Books, New York; John Calder, London. Set and costume designs for Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett, Dir. Walter Azmus, Gate Theatre, Dublin Awarded Honorary Ll. D., University College, Dublin.
1990 Illustration for a poem of Samuel Beckett, Great Book of Ireland.
1991 Retrospective in Japan
1994 Elected Saoi, Aosdana.
1996 80th birthday, retrospective at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin. Began series, human images & Descates Made Officier des Arts et des Lettres. Gate Theatre production Waiting for Godot, played at the Lincoln Center, New York.
1997 Visited Slovania, Watercolour exhibition.
1998 First artist to receive the IMMA/Glen Dimplex lifetime Achievement Award for a sustained contribution to the arts in Ireland, conferred by President Mary Robinson.
1999 Hon. D. Ph., Dublin City University.
2000 Returns to live and work in Dublin. Record sale at auction, marking him as the fourth artist in these islands, with Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud and David Hockney to break the £1m barrier in their lifetime. 'Inverted series', Aubusson tapestries from 1948-52, Atelier René Duché. The Táin Series, Aubusson tapestries, Atelier René Duché.
2001 Made Officier of the Belgium Ordre de la Couronne .
2002 A Family, Acquired by National Gallery of Ireland, making him the first living artist to be included in the Permanent Irish Collection of the NGI. Hon. D. Ph., Dublin Institute of Technology, 2004. Tain Tapestry Set, Acquired by the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Exhibition attracts a record number of visitors.
2003 The National Gallery of Ireland celebrates the opening of the National Portrait Collection with the unveiling of a specially commissioned Image of Bono, 20 October 2003
2004 Hon. D. Ph., Dublin Institute of Technology, 2004.
2006 90th birthday celebrations. 10 one-person exhibitions and numerous events are organised in France, England and Ireland including Gimpel Fils, London; National Gallery of Ireland; Galerie Jeanne-Bucher, Paris; Hunt Museum, Limerick; Irish Museum of Modern Art; Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane; Crawford City Gallery, Cork; Taylor Galleries, Dublin.
Hon. Associate, NCAD, Dublin.
2007 Awarded Freedom of the City of Dublin.
2008 50th wedding anniversary with the artist Anne Madden.