Marbles at Play – SOLD!

Marbles at Play Original Oil on Board 91cm x 61cm by D’Arcy Doyle SOLD!

This painting is meant to summon up wistful recollections of “the good old days” when life and its pleasures were simple.  A stage has been set using a number of symbols of post-war Australia such as a dirt road a Queenslander house and a ring drawn in the dirt with kids and parents gathered around intent on the game of Marbles.  Doyle has placed a tableau of figures all focused, by the devices of gaze and pointing on the centre of a marble ring.  The view behind is almost like a separate painting.  You are led into the painting by the dirt road to the focal point being the children playing marbles and then off into the farm scene set behind.  All of the colours in the painting blend together with yellows and fawns, predominating.  d’Arcy W Doyle was a self-taught painter of Australian landscapes and historical scenes.  Born in Ipswich in 1932, died in 2001.  He always had a keen interest in drawing and took up full-time painting in 1961.  This scene painted in 1993 from his childhood memories is based on his uncles farm out of Ipswich, where d’Arcy was raised.