Page 43 - Studio International - November 1966

James Dixon

James Dixon is a discovery of the painter Derek Hill-
or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that
James Dixon discovered Derek Hill, painting in
Tory Island, and saw no reason why he should not
try his hand as well. Encouraged by Mr Hill, who
supplied him with oil paints and paper, he set to
work:
'I like painting the local views and the people who live
on Tory Island. I don't know why I started painting
three or four years back; something for an old man to
do I suppose. I was always active you know, either
fishing or doing a little bit of work on the land here.
Of course, you don't get all that much colour here,
except the blues and greys of the sky and the
glistening of the sea. There's nothing romantic about
little boats fighting with crashing waves or cruel
winds. What all this talk about primitive art is I don't
know. I like painting natural things, nothing fancy.'*
His pictures usually have long descriptive titles,
written in pencil over the painting: Mrs Kathie
Rodgers Driving the Cattle Home; Duncky Race on
Tory Island; A Boat hawling a Ringnet in a Gully back
of the west end village; HMS Wasp British Gunboat
wrecked Back of the lighthouse Tory Island where
82 of a noble crew had sunk in the ragin see.
Dixon, a retired fisherman in his late seventies, has
never been to England-indeed he has rarely left
Tory Island, ten miles north of the Donegal Coast
and as remote a place as any in the British Isles.
It is this physical isolation that has helped him avoid
the 'knowing' quality which sooner or later seems to
destroy most primitive painters. His paintings are
like those of an immensely gifted child-most of them
done very quickly and then abandoned as being
without interest. He is not another Alfred Wallis,
because his work lacks the strong formal qualities
of Wallis's paintings, but the memories and lives of
both men are similar enough to give their work
something in common.
Alan Bowness

*Quoted in an article by Barrie Sturt-Penrose in Observer
February 13, 1966

Above centre
James Dixon
Amuldoon caught in a ring net
in Camusmore Bay being
'Toded' into the Tory Island
pier to 'git' him out of the
net. 1966
Oil on paper
28 3/4 x 22 in.
Courtesy Portal Gallery
Left
James Dixon
Tory Island 2316166 1966
Oil on paper
28 3/4 x 22 in.
Courtesy Portal Gallery