Padraic Woods RUA

Padraic Woods was a landscape and portrait painter born in Newry, Co. Down. He was educated at St Joseph’s National School and then at the age of fifteen he took a few classes at the Belfast School of Art. He then won a scholarship to St Patrick’s Training College in Dublin.

Woods first exhibition was in the Belfast Art Society in 1920 having had a close friendship with James Humbert Craig. Elected an associate of the Ulster Academy of Arts in 1931. In 1940, Padraic was commissioned to do a most important portrait of Professor D.L. Savory who was a Professor of French at Queen’s University.

Woods retired early in 1946 so that he could focus all of his attention on painting. John Hewitt the Belfast poet said, ‘not often trodden, but with a kindly unemphatic art, never dashingly adventurous nor ploddingly pedestrian’.