SEVEN HALTS ON THE SOMME. Memorial paintings by Hughie
O’Donoghue RA on display for the centenary
30 June - 2 October
2016
To mark the centenary of the Battle of the
Somme Leighton House Museum, in partnership
with Eton College, present Seven Halts on The Somme by
Hughie O’Donoghue RA. First exhibited in 2014 at Eton College’s
Verey Gallery, the seven large-scale abstract paintings will go on
public display in Leighton House Museum to coincide with the start
of the battle in July 1916, as a fitting commemoration of the lives
lost during this terrible conflict.
O’Donoghue’s paintings are characterised by an in
depth examination and interrogation of their subject matter. He
uses both figuration and abstraction to explore themes of human
identity, memory and experience, drawing on history, mythology and
personal records to create works which resonate with emotional
intensity. Seven Halts on The Somme is a sequence of
paintings recalling seven stopping points, where troops were halted
during one of the bloodiest military battles in history, one
hundred years ago. Each painting is a commemoration of an
individual life explored through a painting process evocative of
archaeological excavation.
“Seven Halts on the Somme
represents seven places where the army was stopped in 1916, seven
places were lives were stopped and also seven places where I have
stopped years later and tried to remember. As time distances us
from events this ‘calling to mind’ becomes harder and the battle
itself massive, labyrinthine and complex, more remote and difficult
to understand. I
have tried to get closer to the story through the lives of
individuals and the places where they fell, putting a human face on
history and finding a personal connection. I believe that the
universal can only really be understood through the
particular. These
paintings are a meditation in concrete form on past events, built
up in successive layers, mirroring the way that an archaeologist
removes layers to reveal a story.”
The paintings, on loan from the Eton College Collections, are
the result of the artist’s residency at the college’s Drawing
Schools in 2013-14. O’Donoghue spent many months exploring the
remarkable collection of letters and diaries from World War One in
the College Archives, alongside his own research into the
landscapes of Northern France and his family connection to the
conflict. Each artwork is a bold and vivid interpretation of a
place in the landscape. Intense hues of yellow, red and green on
square canvases of five feet and one inch, in reference to the
height men had to be to qualify for service, and maps of the
battlefield will mirror the intensity of The Somme and the horrors
of war. The act of memory and remembrance is heightened through the
portrayal of landscapes, buildings and fields that witnessed
destruction and horror unlike any other.
PUBLIC EVENTS: Artist Talk with Hughie
O'Donoghue. Saturday 2 July 12.30-1.30pm. Find out more information.
PRESS: For further information and images
please contact Charlotte Sluter at SUTTON T: 0207 183 3577 | E:
charlottes@suttonpr.com
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