(Herbert George) Rodrigo MoynihanBurke's Landed Gentry 1970, pg 876 (17 October 1910 – 6 November 1990) was an English painter, credited with being a pioneer of

abstract painting Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th ...

in England.

Early life

Moynihan was born in

Santa Cruz de Tenerife Santa Cruz de Tenerife, commonly abbreviated as Santa Cruz (), is a city, the capital of the island of Tenerife, Province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, and capital of the Canary Islands. Santa Cruz has a population of 206,593 (2013) within its admi ...

Canary Islands The Canary Islands (; es, Canarias, ), also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, in Macaronesia. At their closest point to the African mainland, they are west of Morocc ...

, in 1910, to Herbert James Moynihan, a fruit broker from

County Cork County Cork ( ga, Contae Chorcaí) is the largest and the southernmost county of Ireland, named after the city of Cork, the state's second-largest city. It is in the province of Munster and the Southern Region. Its largest market towns are ...

, and Maria (née de la Puerta). His Anglo-Spanish family moved to London in 1918 and then to

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

. A winter in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

1927–1928 inspired him to devote himself to art, and in 1928 he started studying at the

Slade School of Fine Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

in London. In the 1930s he gained a reputation as a pioneer of

in England as a member of the Objective Abstraction movement. Moynihan was later attracted to

social realism Social realism is the term used for work produced by painters, printmakers, photographers, writers and filmmakers that aims to draw attention to the real socio-political conditions of the working class as a means to critique the power structure ...

and became associated from 1937 with the

Euston Road School The Euston Road School is a term applied to a group of English painters, active either as staff or students at the School of Drawing and Painting in London between 1937 and 1939. The School opened in October 1937 at premises in Fitzroy Street bef ...

Wartime camoufleur, war artist

Moynihan served in the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

from 1940 to 1943, first in the Royal Artillery and then doing camouflage work. Following an injury, he was given a full-time salaried commission by the

War Artists' Advisory Committee The War Artists Advisory Committee (WAAC), was a British government agency established within the Ministry of Information at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 and headed by Sir Kenneth Clark. Its aim was to compile a comprehensive artist ...

, WAAC, having previously completed a number of short-term contracts for the Committee. He completed a number of portraits of

ATS ATS or Ats may refer to: Businesses * ATS Wheels, or ''Auto Technisches Spezialzubehör'', a German wheel manufacturer and sponsor of a Formula One racing team * ATS Automation Tooling Systems, an Ontario, Canada-based factory automation company ...

and senior, male, military figures for this contract and also for subsequent shorter WAAC contracts Moynihan was appointed an Associate Member of the Royal Academy in 1944.

Postwar career

After the war, he was professor of painting at the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It offe ...

1948–1957, and was elected a full member of the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...

in 1954. At this period, he was in demand for official portraits, and executed commissions of amongst others Princess Elizabeth (1946) and Prime Minister

Clement Attlee Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, (3 January 18838 October 1967) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955. He was Deputy Prime Mini ...

(1947). He changed direction from 1957, resigning from the Royal College of Art and the Royal Academy and returning to abstraction, working outside England in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

and

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

. From 1971 onwards he was inspired to return to figurative painting in the form of large-scale studio still-lives, unordered, unarranged and apparently random. One of these such paintings was, ''The shelf, objects and shadows - front view'' (1982–83). This return to figuration also drew him to move back towards portraiture – with portraits of friends leading to renewed commissions by the end of the 1970s. Notable portraits of this period include Prime Minister

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. S ...

(1983–85;

National Portrait Gallery, London The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is an art gallery in London housing a collection of portraits of historically important and famous British people. It was arguably the first national public gallery dedicated to portraits in the world when it ...

) and Dame

Peggy Ashcroft Dame Edith Margaret Emily Ashcroft (22 December 1907 – 14 June 1991), known professionally as Peggy Ashcroft, was an English actress whose career spanned more than 60 years. Born to a comfortable middle-class family, Ashcroft was deter ...

(1984; National Portrait Gallery).

Awards and distinctions

Moynihan was re-elected to the

in 1979. He has paintings in the collection of several British institutions including the Glasgow Museums, Derby Art Gallery and in the

Imperial War Museum Imperial War Museums (IWM) is a British national museum organisation with branches at five locations in England, three of which are in London. Founded as the Imperial War Museum in 1917, the museum was intended to record the civil and military ...

Family life

Moynihan married artist

Elinor Bellingham-Smith Elinor Bellingham-Smith (28 December 1906 – 4 November 1988) was a British painter of landscapes and still life. Her paintings are in the collections of Tate, Museums Sheffield, the Government Art Collection, Arts Council Collection and other m ...

in 1931 (one son, John Moynihan). They divorced in the late '50s and in 1960, he married fellow-artist

Anne Dunn Anne Dunn (born 4 September, 1929) is an English artist associated with the second generation of the School of London. Background and education Born in London, England, Dunn is the daughter of the Canadian steel magnate Sir James Dunn, 1st ba ...

with whom he had a second son Daniel "Danny" Moynihan. They went to live in the south of

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

References

* John Moynihan, ''Restless Lives: the Bohemian world of Rodrigo and Elinor Moynihan'', 2002

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Moynihan, Rodrigo 1990 deaths 1910 births 20th-century English painters English male painters Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art British war artists Camoufleurs Royal Academicians World War II artists Spanish emigrants to the United Kingdom 20th-century English male artists