Frank O'Meara
Frank O'Meara
This portrait of Frank O'Meara was painted by the famous Italian American portrait artist John Singer Sargent. It is an oil on canvas painting and was completed around 1876, when Frank was 24 years old. It is currently in a private collection.
© The Century Association, New YorkFrank O'Meara
© The Century Association, New York
© The Century Association, New York
Frank O'Meara
This portrait of Frank O'Meara was painted by the famous Italian American portrait artist John Singer Sargent. It is an oil on canvas painting and was completed around 1876, when Frank was 24 years old. It is currently in a private collection.
© The Century Association, New York
Frank O'Meara was born in Carlow on 30th March, 1853. He was one of the most famous Irish artists that painted in the 'Plein-Air' or 'Open Air' style. 'Plein-Air' artists painted outside in the open air and it was important to them to work in natural light.
O'Meara moved to Paris to study art in the early 1870s at the studio of Carolus-Duran. At the studio, he became friends with the famous American portrait artist John Singer Sargent.
He later went to the Grez-sur-Loing artist colony, just south of Paris. Many art students travelled there at this time.
O'Meara was a famously slow painter. Usually, he would only paint about three pictures a year.
Reverie
This is another painting by O'Meara of a girl waiting by water. This is not as mournful as The Widow shown earlier, but it is still melancholic. She seems to be waiting for someone. What do you think? This is probably O'Meara's most famous painting. It sold for £496,500 at an auction in London in May 1999.
Private Collection, courtesy of Pyms Gallery, LondonReverie
Private Collection, courtesy of Pyms Gallery, London
Private Collection, courtesy of Pyms Gallery, London
Reverie
This is another painting by O'Meara of a girl waiting by water. This is not as mournful as The Widow shown earlier, but it is still melancholic. She seems to be waiting for someone. What do you think? This is probably O'Meara's most famous painting. It sold for £496,500 at an auction in London in May 1999.
Private Collection, courtesy of Pyms Gallery, London
He exhibited his work at the Royal Hibernian Academy once, in 1879. However, he also exhibited his paintings at the Paris Salon, in London, and at the Royal Glasgow Institute in Scotland.
In 1888 O'Meara returned to Carlow. He died of malaria at his family home at the age of 35.
Five of O'Meara's paintings can be viewed at the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin. There is also one painting in the Ulster Museum, Belfast.