Obituaries

Appreciation: Alan Hobart founder of Pyms Gallery and Orpen specialist

The Irish in the early 20th century had been poets and playwrights, not painters. The Hobarts set out to disprove this popular misconception

Alan Hobart photographed with his wife, Mary Hobart. Permission granted by family and gallery.

Kenneth McConkey
Mon Nov 15 2021 - 01:50

In 1979 a young couple arrived at the door of the Travellers’ Club in London’s Pall Mall holding a little painting. From the depths of club, the doorman fetched an art historian whose opinion they sought. After a brief examination, their recent acquisition, purporting to be by George Clausen, was dismissed, and they went away crestfallen. A few years before they had opened Pyms Gallery in Brompton Road, its name a variant derived from the Pimms they were drinking when the idea of dealing in art first came to them. With the recent death of Alan Hobart, one of its founders, an era of such dealerships draws to a close.

Alan was born in Devon into a family of prosperous shop owners. His Irish mother, Helen Thorpe, was known as “Shamrock”. After school, he was called-up for National Service. Several years after he was discharged, he met Mary. They married in 1970 and in 1975, Pyms Gallery was founded.

Back then they were honing their skills and Alan had fallen in love with Ireland, Mary’s country of origin, and particularly with Connemara where they would eventually establish a second home. However, the Irish in the early 20th century had been poets and playwrights, not painters. The Hobarts set out to disprove this popular misconception, and staged an extraordinary series of exhibitions featuring the work of John Lavery, Jack B Yeats, William Orpen and many others. Among the many achievements of these years were the four exhibitions of the work of Mary Swanzy held between 1986 and 2010.

The Irish and other exhibitions came after a successful move to larger premises in Belgravia that brought the Hobarts a more varied clientele including major museums. Of the Irish artists, Orpen was their favourite painter. In 1996, Alan founded and initially funded the Orpen Research Project which, at the time of its dissolution in 2014 was on the way to completing a catalogue raisonné of the artist’s work.

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This coupled with his board membership of the National Gallery of Ireland Foundation and other Irish charities may be taken as a mark of the respect in which he was held.

Irish pictures continued to feature in Pyms exhibitions into the new century, and by that time the gallery had moved to Mayfair. Shows became more eclectic as specialism now extended to Impressionist and Old Master paintings. It was a sad day in 2013 when the gallery closed but while others would sink into in semi-retirement Alan was busier than ever as a private dealer – even up to the day he died. A lifetime of good humour and support was extended to old friends in the trade, to loyal collectors and to art historians.

Alan Hobart, born September 11th, 1939, died September 17th, 2021, leaves Mary, his siblings, and nieces and nephews.

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