Madam, – Derek Hill was an unusual person in that he appeared to live two mutually exclusive lives: that of a self-indulgent socialite in the upper echelons of the English class system, and that of an ascetic artist, stubborn, self-controlled and classless. How he managed to reconcile these two selves in the one person is the mystery that Bruce Arnold, author of excellent lives of Mainie Jellet, William Orpen and Jack Yeats, sets out to solve in his new book, Derek Hill.
Your reviewer, Robert O’Byrne however, (Weekend Review, September 11th) has chosen not to review the book but to disparage Hill’s claim to be an important artist by accusing him of being out of fashion, “out of sync with the direction in which art had decisively moved”. The most Mr O’Byrne will allow him is “considerable technical abilities”.
Hill could easily have turned out pictures to match the changing fashions, but he knew what he wanted to do and could do best, and he was honest enough not to be deflected from his course. His landscapes and portraits, especially those painted on Tory Island, where he lived in isolation, compel admiration through their truthfulness and lack of false glamour. The countrymen are not romanticised like those of Seán Keating; the landscapes avoid the “welcome here, tourists” message of Paul Henry.
I urge people to read the book, look at the pictures and make up their own minds without bothering about fashion. – Yours, etc,