Gerard Dillon Painting Sells for €1.4 Million, Crushing Estimate by 450%

A painting by Irish artist Gerard Dillon, Tea Party (1955), sold for €1.4 million ($1.6 million) at Adam's Auctioneers in Dublin on May 27, far exceeding its presale estimate of €150,000–€200,000. The work, bought by an unknown phone bidder, set a new auction record for the artist, tripling his previous record of £378,000 set at Sotheby's London in 2020. The auction house's director for fine art, Nicholas Gore Grimes, described the painting as a 'seminal work' with a rich exhibition history, possibly the finest Dillon to appear on the market in 35 years. The sale marks the first significant spike in Dillon's market since the early 2000s, when a peak in 2006 was followed by a sharp decline after 2008. Tea Party, an oil on board depicting six people in a cottage in Roundstone, County Galway, was first exhibited in 1955 at the Irish Exhibition of Living Art in Belfast and Dublin. The figure in a red neck scarf is speculated to be Dillon himself. Born in Belfast in 1916, Dillon was a self-taught painter who worked in London, Dublin, and Belfast, and spent time in Roundstone. He represented Ireland at the Guggenheim International and the Pittsburgh Bicentennial International Exhibition in 1958. He died in 1971 at age 55.