Lot 144: Patsy Dan Rodgers (King of Tory Island) (b.1945)

Patsy Dan Rodgers (King of Tory Island) (b.1945) CUAN THORAÍ (TORY HARBOUR) signed lower right; titled lower left; with details of the Tory Island Painters affixed on reverse oil on board 37 by 47cm., 14.75 by 18.5in. A second work entitled, Tory Island from the Mainland, by Patsy Dan's brother, Ruarí L. Rodgers also with this lot. Patsy Dan Rodgers, King of Tory, was one of the original members of the Tory Island Primitive School of Art, whose patron was the renowned artist Derek Hill. Patsy Dan, along with fellow artists, Anton Meenan, James Dixon and his brother, Ruarí Rodgers first brought their art from the isolated Gaeltacht area that is Tory Island into the public mainland domain when they held their inaugural collective exhibition at the New Gallery, Belfast in 1968. During these formative years, Rodgers was an instrumental campaigner against Government plans to relocate the inhabitants of Tory to the Donegal mainland following the 1974 storms which left those on Tory Island cut off for nearly two months. Owing to this, as well as his artistic and cultural contributions to the island, he has since been granted the title of King of Tory. In October 2003 the University of Ulster Art Gallery, Belfast paid homage to the naive style of this collective of artists in a group exhibition of Tory Islander art. Patsy Dan's continues to produce to date and has had recent exhibitions in the Cristeph Gallery, Letterkenny, County Donegal.