Dixon, James

by Rebecca Minch

Dixon, James (1887–1970), painter, was born 2 June 1887 on Tory Island, one of seven children of Denis Dixon, a farmer from Meenlaragh, Co. Donegal, and Madgey Dixon (née Diver) of Tory island. He spent almost all his life on the island working as a farmer and a fisherman, painting only very occasionally. It was during the last ten years of his life that he began to paint in earnest, prompted by a meeting with the artist Derek Hill. The two first met when Hill, on one of his regular painting trips to the island, was working on a painting of the West End village. Dixon, on looking at the work, insisted he could do better. Hill, eager to encourage him, agreed to supply oil paints and paper, Dixon's preferred medium. He insisted, however, on making his own brushes out of donkey hair.

The key sources of inspiration for him were his own experiences of life on Tory Island, as can be seen in such paintings as ‘Mr William Rogers ploughing up Dixon's farm’ (Ulster Museum, Belfast). His landscapes are in no way picturesque, rather they directly reflect his impressions of the often harsh island environment. This is particularly true of his paintings of the sea, such as ‘The steamship, the first steamship that ever passed Tory Island sound’. Dixon managed to convey the nature of the islanders' relationship with the sea, a source of livelihood and of danger. This knowledge played an important part in his painting of subjects derived from his imagination, such as ‘The sinking of the Titanic’. In many ways Dixon's paintings may be seen as forming a visual counterpart to the oral tradition of the island.

His instinctive style may be called primitive or naive, and is particularly striking in its lack of concern for traditional artistic conventions. He tended to give a birdseye view of a scene where forms were of disparate scales. He did not have a knowledge of art apart from what he saw artists such as Hill paint on Tory Island. While he may therefore be seen as working outside the mainstream traditions of western art, certain comparisons may be drawn with expressionism in the sense that the directness of his application of paint takes precedence over defining forms and contours.

Dixon worked closely with Hill, who played a key role in bringing his work to the public. His paintings began to be seen by a wider audience in the 1960s. Exhibitions of his work were held at the Portal Gallery, London (1966), and at the Dawson Gallery, Dublin (1967). This period also saw the emergence of other painters on the island, collectively known as the Tory Island painters. In 1972 Dixon's work was exhibited along with that of other Tory artists such as John Dixon (1895–1910) (his brother), Patsy Dan Rodgers, and James Rodgers at Grange House, Co. Kilkenny. In 1985 another group exhibition was held at the Irish College in Paris. A major exhibition of Dixon's work was shown in 1990 at the Glebe Gallery, Co. Donegal, and subsequently at UCC.

Dixon's work may also be found in the Derek Hill collection at the Glebe Gallery, in the collections of the Arts Council of Ireland and Dublin City Gallery the Hugh Lane, and in the National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh. He died 11 June 1970 in Dunfanaghy, Co. Donegal; he never married.