Fergus O'Ryan

ARTIST'S PROFILE.

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Fergus O'Ryan RHA ARCA.

Fergus O'Ryan was born in Limerick in 1911. He studied under Richard Butcher at the Limerick School of Art and also attended the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art.  He spent some of his working life as a 'professional designer and commercial artist' as described in a 1949 catalog and worked with McEvoy’s Advertising Services in Dublin in the early 1940s and in 1943 he was with the Rank Organisation working at the Theatre Royal where he became art director designing backdrops and scenery as well as cinema posters. From there he went on to teach at the National College of Art. 63 pieces of O’Ryan’s commercial work sold as part of a of ’60s and ’70s Irish Sweepstakes advertising art in 2005.

His work was exhibited at the Royal Hibernian Academy of Ireland from 1938 to 1984, and he was elected an associate in 1959, becoming a full member in 1960.  He first exhibited at the RHA in 1938 and from then on he exhibited there nearly every year until 1984, overall showing nearly 200 works.  In 1950 and 1954 Fergus O'Ryan held solo shows at the Victor Waddington Galleries.

In 1952 he supplied the illustrations for Patricia Lynch's Tales of Enchantment, and in 1953 he designed a stamp to mark An Tostal, the spring cultural festivals held across Ireland from the early 1950s-mid 1960s. 
Read about An Tóstal here

An Tostal stamps

From 1955-69 he exhibited at the Watercolour Society of Ireland.  He won the prestigious Douglas Hyde Gold Medal at the Oireachtas Exhibition, Dublin, in 1956.

He was passionate about travel and spent most holidays abroad visiting France and Germany before the Second World War leaving a European taste to his work as you will see in his market scenes. O’ Ryan also lectured in art at the Masonic School and at evening classes in Rathmines High School. In his last appearance at the RHA, 1984, his six works included Glendalough River, Laragh and Riddles Row, Dublin.

Glendalough River, Laragh

The Fergus O’ Ryan RHA Memorial Award was instituted at the 1993 exhibition. A studio sale was held at the James Gallery, Dalkey, Co. Dublin, in 1997.

O'Ryan's works are included in the collections of the Crawford Municipal Gallery, Cork and the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery, Dublin. Place de Furstenburg is one of three oils at Crawford Municipal Art Gallery, Cork. In Dublin Civic Museum are six woodcuts of old Dublin.

Place De Furstenburg Paris

Christ Church Cathedral

 In 1953, the Eire Society of  Boston donated three  Fergus O'Ryan oil paintings  to three of Boston's  institutions of learning: The  Boston Public Library, the  Fogg Art Museum at  Harvard University  (painting of Christ Church  Cathedral, left) and Boston  College High School.

 

  

The artist died in 1989.

Clippings from The Limerick Leader Jan 1951, Oct 1952 & Nov 1953