John Shinnors: 'I think girls loved the smell of turpentine off of me'
John Shinnors has a new exhibition at Cahir Arts.
John Shinnors has the rare distinction of being an Irish artist who has achieved critical and commercial success entirely on his own terms. His exhibitions are gushingly reviewed, and his abstract landscape paintings – often composed in a palette of black and white, with a smack of red or green – regularly fetch five-figure sums.
Shinnors has lived in Limerick city all his life, and it comes as no surprise that one of his paintings, , appears on the poster for Common Ground, an exhibition in Cahir Arts by 20 contemporary Irish artists associated with Limerick School of Art and Design. Also included in the show are such well-known names as Charles Harper, Michael Canning and Aideen Barry.
Shinnors grew up on Merchant’s Quay, and attended the Christian Brothers School on Sexton St. His father was a mechanic, and art was an interest he developed on his own initiative, he says. “I was very independent minded from an early age. I got on well with my parents. They never tried to tell me that I should follow in their footsteps, or anything like that. When I went to study art, they didn’t care, to be honest.”
He enrolled at Limerick School of Art and Design, an institution he describes as being like “a halting site for students. There were 60 or 70 of us, from all over Limerick, Tipperary and Clare. Most were 17 or 18.”
Art college was where young people went if they were anyway creative. It provided the time and space for them to develop a practice, while not necessarily adhering to the visual arts curriculum. “There wasn’t much by way of regulations,” says Shinnors. “A lot of them were there to learn guitar.”
The late 1960s saw students across the world engage in disruptive, rebellious behaviour, but Shinnors insists his time at college was pretty quiet. “We didn’t even socialise much, to be honest. I went out with one or two girls, but that was it. I think they loved the smell of turpentine off of me. I was a prolific painter in those days, so the turpentine was like an aftershave.”
At one stage, Shinnors abandoned college to go to London, where he worked odd jobs and busked on the street. “Yeah, I rambled off for a year or two, but I think they were glad to have me back. Jack Donovan was the college director, and when he saw me, he said, you owe me £4 for your last year’s fees.”
After he graduated in 1972, Shinnors never pined for regular employment. He sometimes taught part-time at his alma mater, but painting was always his passion. “I didn’t care much about money,” he says. “I had a couple of shows in Limerick where I sold work, and that meant I could pay for a studio downtown. In my late 20s, I went at it full-time.”
Around that time, Guinness Peat Aviation, the largest commercial aircraft leasing company in the world, was based at Shannon. Tony Ryan, its director, was a philanthropist and art lover, and he arranged for GPA to sponsor the Royal Hibernian Academy’s Emerging Artists Award in the early 1980s.
“In 1984, there were at least 250 entrants,” says Shinnors, “and I won. The award was worth £5,000, a lot of money in those days.”
Shinnors collected his award at the RHA Annual Exhibition in Dublin. That was when he first met John Taylor, of the prestigious Taylor Galleries on Kildare St. “I called in to see him at the gallery a few days later, and he asked me to send up a few pieces for the Christmas Show. They were well received. Brian Fallon at the gave me a good review. I’ve been showing with the Taylor ever since.”
Not that it has all been plain sailing, he says. He was invited to join Aosdána, the Irish artists’ association, in 1997, and soon availed of the cnuas, or annual stipend, it provides for those of its members in need. “I had that for about five years,” he says, “and it was a useful safety net. Then things picked up again, and I let it go.”
By 2003, Shinnors’ work was in such demand that he had two exhibitions open on the same evening in Cork. One, at the Crawford Art Gallery on Emmet Place, featured his paintings of scarecrows, the Shannon estuary, and Dún Aengus on Inishmore. The other, at the Vangard Gallery on Carey’s Lane, was a commercial exhibition of new paintings. “That was something else,” he says, adding mischievously, “they were very good buyers in Cork.”
The Shannon estuary is a subject Shinnors has returned to often. “I’m just intrigued by that landscape. There’s that magnificent lighthouse at the end of it, at Loop Head… it’s given me a lot of material.”
Scarecrows are another recurring subject. “They’ve been very effective,” he chuckles. “No one who has bought one of my scarecrow paintings has ever had crows in the house again.”
Shinnors has enjoyed his success, and has made a point of giving back to the arts community. Since 2005, he has sponsored the Shinnors Curatorial Scholarship in partnership with Limerick City Gallery of Art. The scholarship is presented every two years, and allows the winning candidate to undertake an MA or PhD by Research at Limerick School of Art and Design.
“Mike Fitzpatrick was the director at the Gallery of Art at the time. I was making a few bob, and when I told him I was interested in sponsoring an award, he suggested it be a curatorial one. So Mike set it up, and I put up the readies.”
Shinnors has plenty of other interests outside of painting. Gandon Editions published his book of illustrated stories, Adult Reading at Artist’s Bedtime, in 2018. “It’s a kind of autobiography,” he says. “I enjoy writing. I also like to work in stone and wood a little.”
Just as he never felt obliged to become a mechanic like his father, Shinnors never expected his two sons, Jonathan and Roger, to become creatives. “They both have jobs outside the arts,” he says. “But my daughter-in-law, Gillian Kenny-Shinnors, is a painter."
Shinnors’ wife Catherine passed away in 2024. He is 76 himself now, but sees no reason to lay down his brushes. “You don’t retire when you’re an artist,” he says. “I’m still working. Still painting, if you can call it work. Something has to pay the drinks bill. Painting has sustained me, and not just financially, but psychologically and emotionally as well.
“I was asked once who my favourite painter was, and I said, myself. The interviewer was very surprised. But you have to like yourself, you know. When I pull off a painting, I feel very gratified.”
- Common Ground runs at Cahir Arts, 26 Castle St, Cahir, Co Tipperary until July 18. Further information: cahirarts.com
