Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 11

Philip Castle
Fantastic Village Scene Modern Irish Magic Realism Oil Painting

$3,000
£2,277.55
€2,605.03
CA$4,191.44
A$4,661.79
CHF 2,434.24
MX$56,729.03
NOK 31,088.99
SEK 29,155.99
DKK 19,442.34
Shipping
Retrieving quote...
The 1stDibs Promise:
Authenticity Guarantee,
Money-Back Guarantee,
24-Hour Cancellation

About the Item

Philip Castle was an Irish Painter and husband to artist Barry Castle He is rarely exhibited. His detailed, meticulous work took a long time to complete and his output was quite limited. He was the husband of Barry Castle, known for her vivid allegorical fantasies, featuring animal and human characters in stylised, often bucolic settings. Her intricately detailed work was distinguished by a note of mischievous humour but it was also thoughtful and introspective in tone. It sometimes featured self-portraits, disguised to a greater or lesser extent. The graphic clarity and translucent colouring of her technique were ideally suited to illustration and she illustrated several books, including one, Cooking for Cats (1985), for which she herself provided the verse text. Her writing displays a mordant wit and an instinct for the macabre reminiscent of Roald Dahl. While at the NCAD she met Philip Castle, who was studying physics at Trinity with Nobel Laureate Ernest Walton. Philip forsook his studies to become a self-taught painter of hugely detailed, architectonic compositions, and they married in 1963. In the mid-1960s they settled in Villefranche-sur-Mer in the south of France. They subsequently acquired a ruined farmhouse in a remote part of Tuscany. Eventually managing to make a scorpion-infested section of the house habitable (formerly the pigsty, Castle maintained), they spent two months there each summer. Finding herself alone in their French home when Philip was away for a month in 1968, Castle started to paint with his brushes. From that point on she painted consistently, though it took her some time to find her own style. Philip exhibited his work with the Portal Gallery in London and, from 1974, she showed her paintings there too. While the Portal specialised in Outsider art, she was not an Outsider artist as such. Although she described herself as a naive artist, her technique was sophisticated and displayed know-ledge of medieval and renaissance art. She also exhibited in the Solomon Gallery, Dublin. When in Dublin she and Philip resided in a tiny building in Proud's Lane, managing to fit surprisingly large numbers of people into a minimal space for lavish dinner parties. Like her mother, she was a brilliant cook. Reading through her mother's papers, she was inspired to illustrate some of her writings and two books ensued: The Cottage in the Bog, (1992) and The Queen of Aran's Daughter (1995), the first a story of Irish rural life, the second a collection of fairy tales set on Aran.
  • Creator:
    Philip Castle (1942, British)
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 21.5 in (54.61 cm)Width: 25.75 in (65.41 cm)Depth: 0.66 in (1.68 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    Surfside, FL
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU38216450012

More From This Seller

View All
Large Israeli Naive Art Screen Enamel Oil Painting Jerusalem Old City Folk Art
By Gabriel Cohen
Located in Surfside, FL
JERUSALEM, Vielle du David, (City of David) Superlac (enamel) painting on paper, hand signed, titled and dated. Provenance: Michael Hittleman Gallery Los Angeles. Gabriel Cohen, (...
Category

20th Century Folk Art Landscape Paintings

Materials

Paper, Oil, Alkyd

Austrian Magic Realist Oil Painting Vibrant Village Landscape Scene Franz Coufal
Located in Surfside, FL
Framed 24.5 x 28.5 image 19.5 x 23 inches. Franz Anton Coufal (Austrian, 1927 - 1999) Painter and sculptor known for figure painting, bronze sculpture, genre paintings and as a grap...
Category

20th Century Modern Landscape Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Rare Israeli Naive Art Oil Painting Jerusalem Israel Old City Landscape Folk Art
Located in Surfside, FL
JERUSALEM, Vielle du David, (City of David) Oil painting on canvas Hand signed in Hebrew (Perlman, Pearlman or Perelman. There are numerous artists with this name. we are unsure wh...
Category

20th Century Folk Art Landscape Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Mod 1970's Israeli Judaica Folk Art Jerusalem View Enamel on Copper Painting
Located in Surfside, FL
This is a masterfully executed wall hanging enamel on copper painting of Jerusalem. it is signed in Hebrew. Israel has had a Vibrant Folk Art, Naive art scene for a long time now artists like Yisrael Paldi, Nahum Guttman, Reuven Rubin had naive periods. The most well know of the strict naive artists are Shalom of Safed, Irene Awret...
Category

20th Century Folk Art Landscape Paintings

Materials

Copper, Enamel

Italian Modernist Surrealist Architecture Landscape Oil Painting Lazzaro Donati
By Lazzaro Donati
Located in Surfside, FL
Lazzaro Donati (Italian, 1926-1977) Oil on board. Colorful Architectural Italian Landscape. Porto Azzurro, 1964 Hand signed upper right. signed, titled on back of panel. Dimensions: (Frame) H 37" x W 29", (Panel) H 27" x W 19" Lazzaro Donati was born in Florence and attended the Academy of Fine Arts. He began to paint in 1953, and in 1955 held his first exhibition at the Indiano Gallery in Florence. Within three years eleven exhibitions followed in Italy, and as his reputation grew he was invited to give major exhibitions in London, Paris, New York, Chicago, Rio de Janeiro and Montevideo. He is considered one of the foremost contemporary Italian painters and his paintings hang in museums and private collections throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. His work is recalling the works of the french Raoul Dufy, Dunoyer de Segonzac, Francois Gall and Jean Jansem. This particular work is reminiscent of the work of Manolo Valdes. Donati lived and worked at 24 Piazza Donatello in Florence, the square where generations of artists have created works worthy of the great Florentine tradition. As you entered the narrow hallway to his studio, a gilded life-size Venetian angel beckoned you to his door. Once inside, the present faded away and you found yourself in an atelier where early masters might have worked during the Renaissance. Within, luxurious Persian rugs set off the innumerable objects d’art and antique furnishings...
Category

1960s Surrealist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil, Panel

Whimsical French Folk Art, Naive, Oil Painting Madeline Marie Christine Clavier
By Madeline Christine Clavier
Located in Surfside, FL
MADELINE CHRISTINE CLAVIER (1913-2015) Signature: Signed lower right & titled verso Medium: Oil on canvas Provenance: The collection of the artist's family Marie Christine Clavier was born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1913 to French parents and lived there for her formative years. She returned to France as a teenager and began to study painting. Her work quickly developed into whimsical paintings of poetry and songs – harmonized in a unique and distinct painting technique. Her work has an impasto feel and a folk art, outsider artist sensibility to it. Similar in style to Maik and other fantasy realists who use animals, flowers and foliage in their artworks. Marie Clavier painted ro herself rather than for profit as she was quite independently wealthy. She exhibited extensively in the United States in the 1970s especially across Connecticut and New York, showing at various galleries and cultural centres. She had numerous solo exhibitions in the 1970’s- notably at the Maison Francaise in New York and New York University. She showed at Galerie Bernheim Jeune in Paris. She won many awards for her work including Gold Medals and Palme D’Or medals. In 1988 the prestigious art publisher Leopard D’Or produced catalogue book on her life and work – by this point she had virtually given up painting. She died in 2015 aged 102. Bernheim-Jeune gallery is one of the oldest art galleries in Paris. Opened on Rue Laffitte in 1863 by Alexandre Bernheim (1839-1915), friend of Delacroix, Corot and Courbet, it changed location a few times before settling on Avenue Matignon. The gallery promoted realists, Barbizon school paintings and, in 1874, the first impressionist and later post-impressionist painters. It closed in 2019. In 1901, Alexandre Bernheim, with his sons, Josse (1870-1941), and Gaston (1870-1953), organized the first important exhibition of Vincent van Gogh paintings in Paris with the help of art critic Julien Leclercq. In 1906, Bernheim-Jeune frères started presenting works by Pierre Bonnard, Edouard Vuillard, Paul Cezanne, Henri-Edmond Cross, Kees van Dongen, Henri Matisse, Le Douanier Rousseau, Raoul Dufy, Maurice de Vlaminck, Amedeo Modigliani, Maurice Utrillo and Georges Dufrenoy. From 1906 to 1925, art critic Félix Fénéon was the director of the gallery and was instrumental in bringing in the art of Georges Seurat and Umberto Boccioni. In 1922, an exhibition brought together works by Alice Halicka...
Category

20th Century Folk Art Animal Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

You May Also Like

Mexican American Folk Art Oil Painting – Figures, Houses & Landscape, 20th C.
By Martin Saldana
Located in Denver, CO
A charming and colorful oil on board painting by acclaimed Mexican American folk artist Martin Saldaña (1874–1965), titled “Farm and Figures.” This unique 20th-century outsider artwo...
Category

Mid-20th Century Folk Art Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil

1950's Modernist Painting, Landscape of a French Town
Located in Cirencester, GB
French town. by Bernard Labbe (French mid 20th century), stamped verso. Original watercolour/gouache painting on paper. Overall size: 9.5 x 12.5 inches. Condition: very good and read...
Category

Mid-20th Century Modern Paintings

Materials

Other

Vintage Signed Architectural Modern Medieval Revival Framed Landscape Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique English modernist landscape oil painting by Phillip Castle (Born 1943). Oil on canvas. Framed. Signed verso.
Category

1950s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Charming village scene painting in a style reminiscing to Cezanne
Located in San Francisco, CA
Charming village scene painting in a style reminiscing to Cezanne Signed "MADO" lower right Oil on canvas 18 x 21 unframed, 23 x 26 framed
Category

19th Century Landscape Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Naïve Art Oil Painting, Countryside Landscape, Village and Farmers, France 1950s
By Paul Gauguin
Located in ROUEN, Normandie
Naïve Art Oil Painting, Countryside Landscape, Village and Farmers, France 1950s Signed "P.LEFEBRE" at the bottom right corner. This vibrant painting by French artist P. Lefebre is...
Category

Mid-20th Century French Mid-Century Modern Paintings

Materials

Gold Leaf

Mid Century Modern Vintage Original Landscape Oil Painting - Village Pathway
Located in Bristol, GB
VILLAGE PATHWAY Size: 71 x 49.5 cm (including frame) Oil on board A striking mid-century modernist painting that captures a female figure walking along a village pathway, gracefully...
Category

Mid-20th Century Modern Landscape Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board