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Basil Ivan Rackoczi (1908-1979)
Near Carroroe
Currently not on view
- Year
- Unknown
- Size
- Unframed 24.7x34.7cm; Framed 51.7 x 61cm
- Medium
- Pen and ink drawing with watercolour wash/ ink drawing and wash / watercolour
Basil Rakoczi was born in 1908 in London to an Irish mother and Hungarian father. He studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumiére in Paris. Rakoczi spent 6 years in Ireland, settling in Leenaun, Galway for some time before moving to Dublin in 1940. Leenaun is located 45km from Carroroe, the title of this work. Rakoczi was a prominent and leading member of the Irish art group, the White Stag, along with Kenneth Hall. The White Stag exhibitions were first held at Upper Mount Street and then 6 Lower Baggot Street in Dublin.
Rakoczi’s artistic style varies greatly, he believed in exploring psychological aspects of his work and he was absorbed by the theme of the human condition, he was also a founding member of the Society for Creative Psychology. As a result, his paintings have a very modernist yet unique style. He primarily used oil and gouache as a medium but frequently worked with monotype and watercolour and ceramics for tile designs.
Rakoczi left Ireland in 1945/6, first going to London before settling in Paris. He continued to send works to the annual exhibitions of the Royal Hibernian Academy, the Watercolour Society of Ireland and to the Irish Exhibition of Living Art and also had a number of one-man shows in Dublin between 1948 and 1954. His work is in a number of important collections internationally including University of Sussex, Derby City Art Gallery, Manchester City Art Gallery, Dublin's Trinity College, the Ulster Museum in Belfast, the Queensland Australia National Collection and Auckland City Art Gallery.
