Dunlop was born in
Dublin, Ireland, to a Scottish-Irish
Anthroposophical-
Quaker family. His mother painted in watercolour. of writers and artists, and his own work is characterised by a painterly exuberance. He joined
The London Group of artists in 1931. Dunlop's work is in a number of public galleries, including the
Tate. Most of his life was spent in England, latterly at
Barnham, West Sussex, close to
Chichester. He achieved fame in his lifetime, having been elected a full member of the
Royal Academy in 1950, and his work is quite distinctive. In the decades after his death, it has been noted that counterfeits of his work have appeared on the market. Alex Fraser of
Vancouver was Dunlop's dealer in London and again later in Canada once Fraser had emigrated in the 1940s. Dunlop's mother,
Eleanor (née Fitzpatrick) was herself a watercolour artist. His father
Daniel Nicol Dunlop (1868–1935), was a great friend of
W. B. Yeats,
James Stephens and
George Russell (
Æ). Yeats, Russell, and Daniel Nicol Dunlop had together published
The Irish Theosophist from the home of Eleanor's father, the
Shakespearean scholar
R. H. Fitzpatrick. Thus, Dunlop grew up surrounded by the seminal figures of the
Irish Literary Renaissance, in an atmosphere smacking of
mysticism and
Spiritualism. The Dunlop family moved to New York in 1899, then London three years later. From here, they made the annual pilgrimage back to Dublin during
Horse Show week, with Dunlop's father returning to London clutching two or three more 'Æ' canvasses each time. Dunlop trained in art in London, associating with a group of young artists who exhibited at the
Hurricane Lamp Gallery in
Chelsea. In 1928 the group published a journal called
Emotionism: Dunlop supplied a rather vague manifesto ("Art is the expression of the essence of life"), a poem, and an illustration of one of his paintings, "The Fish Market". Dunlop soon expanded his exhibiting circle, showing with the
New English Art Club and later with the
Royal Academy and the
Royal Society of British Artists. He maintained his Irish connections, returning periodically to paint in Dublin and submitting a number of works to the
RHA in the 1940s and 1950s.
Frances Spalding described Dunlop as an 'alla prima' painter of traditional subjects. At some stage he settled in
Barnham, West Sussex, and in 1947 or 1948 exhibited at
Bognor Regis, which led to a connection with
Bibby (see below). He generally signed his work "Dunlop" and his correspondence "R O Dunlop", and as a result his given names were not widely known. Dunlop's paintings can be seen at the
Crawford Gallery in
Cork, at the
Tate Gallery in London, at the
Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum and the
National Portrait Gallery, London. ==Books==