Description
This is an enthralling painting entitled “Fishing Boats, Dun Laoghaire”. Dun Laoghaire is the main harbour in Dublin, Ireland, where the artist is based. This is a pen and watercolour painting by Ross Eccles. The colours are very vibrant and lively, with so much detail within the painting that one feels there must be a lot going on in the picture. This small painting is signed. It is sympathetically framed in a “limed” oak frame, mounted with white mounts and is glazed. Frame dimensions are 50 x 43 cm (19.5″ x 17″). With the actual painting being 24 x 17 cm (9.5″ x 6.5″).
Ross Eccles was born in Blackburn, Lancashire in 1937, studied architecture and was an architect for 30 years in both England and Canada. He moved to Dublin in Ireland in 1971 where he is still based and has exhibited all over the UK and Ireland as well as Canada and New York. His quirky, twisted, abstract style of painting is often thought to be the antidote to his years of having to draw within the constraints of formality within his life as an architect.
The following is an excerpt from a newspaper article featuring this painting…..
Ross Eccles was born in 1937 in Blackburn in Lancashire, was educated at Clitheroe Grammar School and despite having obvious artistic talent and a desire to paint was told by his parents “to get a proper job” he listened and went to (and graduated from) The Birmingham School of Architecture. He practised as an architect for the next 30 years both in The UK and Canada before settling in Ireland in 1971 where he and his wife raised his family whilst he set up his own practise and continued as an architect for a further 21 years. By 1992 Ross felt architecture had taken up enough of his life…he still had the desire to paint and felt it was time to devote himself to his artistic yearnings. So, at 55 he retired from practising architecture and became a full-time artist.
His style is very much the antithesis to his work as an architect. It is almost abstract in its appearance with no, or very few, straight lines ever appearing in his paintings and at first glance a lack of believable structure and form. However, upon further inspection his work is observant, extremely well executed, readily identifiable and very colourful, even if it can seem a little quirky at times. But it is seriously collectible as he has a massive and very supportive following all around the world.
This painting has lots of character to it with plenty of colour as is evidenced within the wavelets themselves that range in swirly colours from blues, as one would expect with the sea, to reds, yellows, pinks and even purples. The sky is the same in its abandonment of tradition and yet this is what lends an almost childlike joy to his paintings which is why he is collected the world over. This is a lovely, happy little painting and it has a very low-price tag, for a work of this artist of only £1,500.
