John Breakey (b.1932)

Two Stones on a Beach Full of Stones

John Breakey is an artist and lithographer born in 1932. He studied at the Belfast College of Art from 1953 to 1958 before moving to London to study drawing, painting, etching and lithography at the Slade School of Art, graduating in 1960 with a diploma in fine art. Breakey returned to Northern Ireland in the 1970s where he established a studio and print workshop in Newcastle, Co. Down. Whilst his earlier works of the 1960s and 1970s were more abstract in character, much of his more recent work has been focused on landscapes.

Breakey’s work has been part of a number of collections including those of Queen’s University Belfast, Oxford University, The National Self-Portrait Collection, Ulster Museum and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. He has also been presented with various awards including the Travel award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland to study lithography at the Tamarind Institute in New Mexico, USA, the Travel Award to study print workshops in Paris, and a Major Award from Down District Council. He was Vice President of the Royal Ulster Academy from 2003 to 2004 and an honorary life member of the Ulster Arts Club.

Breakey’s work is filled with colour and is often inspired by his love of the sea. This is evident in Two Stones on a Beach Full of Stones with its deep blues against white, enhanced by the fragments of colour emanating from the canvas.