Lot 96 Elizabeth Taggart

Elizabeth Taggart b. 1943 THE RAVENS & MUSICIAN Oil on canvas, 40'' x 40'', signed; signed inscribed and dated 02 verso. Born in Donaghadee, Co. Down, Elizabeth Taggart studied painting at the Belfast College of Art in the early 1960s under John Luke and Romeo Toogood, among others. In the mid 1960s, she moved to England where she completed further studies at Leicester College of Art before establishing her first studio in London in 1968. From London, she exhibited regularly at the RHA, the RA and the Irish Exhibitions of Living Art. In 1995, she returned to live in Co. Down where she has been living and working ever since. Elizabeth's work is very much in the tradition of Northern figurists like Dan O'Neill and Gerard Dillon. It is beautifully refined in its execution, the painstaking care of the small brushstrokes echoed in the tenderness of the subject matter. Closer inspection reveals hints of more sinister subtexts in the stillettoed chair legs, masked pierrot figures and averted eyes of the subjects. The eyes that meet those of the viewer convey a sort of melancholy at odds with the flamboyant costumes and theatrical settings.