Lot 27: Nano Reid (1900-1981)The StruggleOil on board, 61 x 50.5cm (24 x 20'')SignedTitle inscribed on artist's label versoExhibited: ‘Nano Reid' Exhibition The Dawson Gallery, October, 1962, Cat No. 10Born in Drogheda, Nano Reid was the daughter of p

Nano Reid (1900-1981)The StruggleOil on board, 61 x 50.5cm (24 x 20'')SignedTitle inscribed on artist's label versoExhibited: ‘Nano Reid' Exhibition The Dawson Gallery, October, 1962, Cat No. 10Born in Drogheda, Nano Reid was the daughter of publican, Thomas Reid. Winning a Scholarship in 1920 to the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art, Reid later remarked on stained glass artist, Harry Clarke’s ‘forceful influence’ on her. In 1950, she was chosen to represent Ireland at the Venice Biennale with Norah McGuinness, where Italian critics expressed surprise that she was a woman, such was the vigor of her brushwork. Her unique style of painting was largely influenced by artists she knew and admired. These included the Argentinian painter Antonio Berni (1905-1972), Belgian artist, Marie Howet (1913-1978), and Belfast artist, Gerard Dillon (1916-1971). Visiting historic monuments together in the Boyne Valley from the 1940s, Dillon and Reid’s approach to their subject matter was often childlike and imagery was depicted with a modern flatness to retain a narrative similar to the illuminated manuscripts and scenes from the panels on the High Crosses in north Leinster. Described by her friend, Patricia Hutchins, as ‘slight, wiry and determined’, Reid was known in the 1960s to sit for periods of time around Louth, Meath and Drogheda absorbing the landscape as she searched backwards in time for subject matter for her oil paintings.Although exhibiting since 1934, Reid’s paintings in the 1960s were largely misunderstood by the public. This wasn’t helped by Reid’s reluctance to explain her paintings, and she too readily accepted that local people in her native town of Drogheda were puzzled by her work. A clue to the narrative of this painting lies in the other titles in the 1962 exhibition catalogue, ‘The King’, ‘Rath and Standing Stones,’ and ‘Pagan and Christian’ which all allude to tales from ancient Ireland. A figure wrestling with a bull may refer to the Irish heroic tale in mythology of Táin Bó Cúailnege also known as The Cattle Raid of Cooley, the cause of which was a battle over bulls. Bulls epitomized masculinity and were a symbol of dominance, strength and power. Comparing their wealth, Queen Medb wanted to equal her husband, Ailill’s prosperity by owning a stud bull and thus began a battle to get a bull from an Ulsterman. Adopting a bird’s eye view, flattened shapes appear with bold colour. Framed in egg yolk yellow a large brown bull and a figure are outlined in prominent lines while above the action, looser swirling strokes of subdued tones suggest a ford, hills and fields. Childlike in simplicity, colour is economical and detail is not important here. In the heroic tale in literature, the arduous battle about bulls lasted months but by employing pictorial intelligence, Reid shares her enjoyment in the tale with the viewer but illustrating the story in her own distinctive authorial voice. Despite living in Dublin in the 1940s and 50s Nano Reid’s subject matter by the late 1950s was directed towards the area around her native Drogheda. In 1958 when the Butter Gate, a 13th century structure in the town of Drogheda was being demolished, Nano Reid became involved in a campaign to save it. Teasing Reid over her actions, Dillon christened her ‘Butter Gate Reid’. A few years later in 1962, she returned to live in Drogheda with her two unmarried sisters, Molly and Jenny, who were running the family bar in James’s Street. Although she continued to hold solo exhibitions at the Dawson Gallery in Dublin and exhibited in group shows in Belfast, Dundalk, Wexford, Cork and Kilkenny, she rarely saw people outside her family circle and spent an increasing amount of time engrossed in the Boyne Valley which enriched her imagination and her life. Karen ReihillFebruary, 2017