Kildare Arts Service : Municipal Collection

‘Les Halles’ -Patrick Collins (1910-1994)

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 61cm x 77cm

Location: Castledermot Library

Born in County Sligo in 1910, Collins didn’t take up painting until he was in his late twenties, and even then his formal art education was limited to two terms of drawing night classes and limited fine art painting at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin. Collins spent a lot of time visiting, and later living in, France, where he studied prehistoric monuments that influenced his art. He exhibited widely across Ireland and Europe.

This painting of is of a scene in Paris’s Les Halles district the traditional market area in the centre of the city. The sketch like quality of this painting brings to mind another painting set in the same city: Claude Monet’s ‘Gare St Lazare’. There is little detail in Collins painting but the composition, like that in Monet’s painting, is dominated by strong architectural shapes: arches and the dominant triangle of the building’s pediment.

Click here to compare this work to 'Gare St. Lazare' by Claude Monet

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