Louis le Brocquy HRHA ([lwi lə bʁɔki]; 10 November 1916 – 25 April 2012) was an Irish painter born in Dublin to Albert and Sybil le Brocquy. Louis' sister is the sculptor Melanie Le Brocquy. His work received many accolades in a career that spanned some seventy years of creative practice. In 1956, he represented Ireland at the Venice Biennale, winning the Premio Acquisito Internationale (a once-off award when the event was acquired by the Nestle Corporation) with A Family (National Gallery of Ireland), subsequently included in the historic exhibition Fifty Years of Modern Art Brussels, World Fair 1958. The same year he married the Irish painter Anne Madden and left London to work in the French Midi.
Le Brocquy was educated at St Gerard's School, studied chemistry at Kevin Street Technical School in 1934, and then Trinity College Dublin.
Le Brocquy is widely acclaimed for his evocative "Portrait Heads" of literary figures and fellow artists. These include William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, and his friends Samuel Beckett, Francis Bacon and Seamus Heaney. Towards the end of his life, le Brocquy's early "Tinker" subjects and Grey period "Family" paintings attracted attention on the international marketplace, placing le Brocquy within a very select group of British and Irish artists whose works commanded prices in excess of £1 million during their lifetimes, a group that includes Lucian Freud, David Hockney, Frank Auerbach, and Francis Bacon.
The artist's work is represented in numerous public collections from the Guggenheim, New York to the Tate Modern, London. In Ireland, he is honoured as the first and only painter to be included during his lifetime in the Permanent Irish Collection of the National Gallery of Ireland. Le Brocquy died on 25 April 2012 and was survived by his daughter Seyre from his first marriage (1938–1948) to Jean Stoney, and his two grandsons John-Paul and David; his second wife Anne Madden whom he married in 1958, and their two sons, Pierre and Alexis.
Le Brocquy designed the covers for the albums Lark in the Morning and The Rising of the Moon.
Le Brocquy illustrated Thomas Kinsella's 1968 translation of Táin Bó Cúailnge. In this series of illustrations, Le Brocquy developed a distinctive style which alluded to cave painting, Rorschach tests and calligraphy. The Louis le Brocquy Táin illustrations are the works, and style of work, most closely associated with the artist in Ireland.
Juncosa, Enriqué, Louis le Brocquy. The Head Image, IMMA Series (Dublin: Irish Museum of Modern Art, 2006), with a contribution by Louis le Brocquy 'The Human Head, Notes on painting and awareness', 48 pp., 16 plates. ISBN 88-8158-616-9
Le Brocquy, Pierre, ed., Louis le Brocquy, The Head Image, (Kinsale: Gandon Editions 1996), with contributions by Prof. George Morgan 'An interview with Louis le Brocquy'; Michael Peppiatt 'An interview with Louis le Brocquy' (1979), [French – German trans.] 184 pp., 80 plates. ISBN 0-946641-58-7
Madden le Brocquy, Anne, Louis le Brocquy, A Painter Seeing his Way (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1994), 317 pp., 118 duotones. ISBN 0-7171-2180-1
Morgan, George, Louis le Brocquy, The Irish Landscape (Dublin: Gandon Editions, 1992), with contributions by Louis le Brocquy 'Artist's Note'; Prof. George Morgan 'Watercolour Landscape Painting – An interview with Louis le Brocquy', [French – German trans.] 100 pp., 40 plates. including special edition. Limited to 250 numbered copies, signed and numbered by the artist. Bound in dark grey cloth, black Morocco spine, stamped in silver, housed in publisher's matching slip-case, Kenny's Bindery, Galway. ISBN 0-946641-29-3
Morgan, George, Louis le Brocquy, Procession (Kinsale: Gandon Editions, 1994), contributions by Prof. George Morgan 'An interview with Louis le Brocquy', [French – German trans.] 65 pp., 28 plates. ISBN 0-946641-44-7
Walker, Dorothy, Louis le Brocquy (Dublin: Ward River Press, 1981; London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1982), with contributions by John Russell; Dorothy Walker; Earnán O’Malley; le Brocquy 'A Painter's Notes on his Irishness', 'Notes on Painting and Awareness'; Jacques Dupin 'The Paintings of 1964 – 1966'; Claude Esteban 'Archaeology of the Face: Images of Lorca'; Seamus Heaney 'Louis le Brocquy's heads'. 167 pp., 140 plates. ISBN 0-907085-13-X
London: Gimpel Fils, Louis le Brocquy, Watercolours, 20 May – 14 June 1947. Text by Denys Sutton.
Dublin: The Victor Waddington Galleries, Paintings and Tapestries by Louis le Brocquy, December 1951
Los Angeles: Esther Robles Gallery, Louis le Brocquy, 23 May – 20 June 1960.
Zürich: Galerie Leinhard, Louis le Brocquy, January 1961. Text by Robert Melville [French trans.].
London: Gimpel Fils, Louis le Brocquy, 12 September – 10 October 1961. Text by Herbert Read.
Dublin: Municipal Gallery of Modern Art [Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon], Louis le Brocquy, A Retrospective Selection of Oil Paintings 1939 – 1966, 8 November – 11 December 1966. Texts by Francis Bacon; Anne Crookshank 'Louis le Brocquy'; Jacques Dupin 'The Paintings of 1964 – 1966' [French trans.].