01-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
Obituary: Michael Kane, one of Ireland's greatest artists, who was inspired by his urban surroundings and produced artworks up until the end of his life
Today at 21:30
One of Ireland's best-known artists, Michael Kane, who has died aged 89, was a maverick figure in modern Irish culture. An outspoken commentator on the machinations of the art world, his paintings, prints and collages drew on personal and literary themes.
A major concern in his work is urban life and the experience of modernity. As his friend, the writer Anthony Cronin, put it, 'Not many visual artists in many countries reveal what Hamlet calls 'the very form and pressure of the time' as clearly as Michael Kane sought to reveal this changing Ireland of the 1970s and the early 80s'.
