The Beckett Suite

Introduction

I first came upon Diarmuid Delargy's work in relation to Samuel Beckett when Gordon Lambert donated a print from the series From an Abandoned Work to the Irish Museum of Modem Art in 1996. Since then I have had good reason to know a great deal more of his work, and indeed, of the achievements and struggles of those who engage in print-making, not just in Ireland but internationally. Delargy's expansion of the range of possibilities inherent in the medium is ongoing and has never been compromised by attempts to popularise a medium that is rarely given the place it deserves in the forefront of art-practice.
The link between art and literature in Ireland has always been close. It is clear from his explicit staging instructions for plays such as Come and Go that Beckett was himself very visually aware and we know that he could and did occasionally write sensitive and penetrating reviews of the artwork that interested him. Diarmuid Delargy has taken a piece of Beckett's writing and with his consent, has created a kind of visual parallel to it, peopled by the writer and a series of humans and animals that evoke, alternatively mental and emotional states, as well as historical contexts.
The series was developed over a five year period. I am delighted that an Irish artist has given such a commitment over time to this piece of writing, in the process fleshing out the journey of the Beckett character in From an Abandoned Work and the strange often tormented, but also magical world he inhabits. A sense of that timefrarne is woven into the texture of the prints, with their allusions to Velasquez, Titian and Cezanne and to the mythical and folkloric, epitomised in the beautiful white horse. The richness of Delargy's process allows for a build up of effects in monotone that carry all the punch of the bare word or the voice as we have grown to know them from Samuel Beckett.
The world that Beckett and Delargy offer is tough as well as lyrical. What is important is that we value the contribution that prints such as these bring to our sense of it.

Catherine Marshall
Senior Curator
Head of Collections
Irish Museum of Modem Art