My friend Derek Shiel, who has died aged 78, was a painter, writer on the arts and producer of films and stage productions. His figurative and abstract paintings in acrylic have been exhibited since the 1960s in Scotland, England, Switzerland and the US, and his books have most notably covered the Welsh poet and painter David Jones as well as the artist Arthur Giardelli. He also made three films on Jones.
Derek was born and raised in Blackrock, County Dublin, the son of Alec, a partner in Kelly & Shiel, a firm that imported electrical goods, and his wife, Lillian (nee Keller). After attending Fettes college in Edinburgh, he went to the Edinburgh College of Art, where he gained a diploma and was then awarded a postgraduate travelling scholarship to the US. Afterwards he took on a series of teaching jobs, including at Berkshire College of Art (1963-65), West Sussex College of Art (1964-69), and the City Literary Institute, London (1965-77).
Throughout this period Derek exhibited his paintings and became involved in a wide range of artistic projects. In addition, he followed his lifelong interest in theatre. He had been involved in the Children’s Theatre Company (pioneered in Dublin in 1947 by Sylvia McCormick) and in 1951 had taken the role of Francis Flute in the company’s staging of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In 1980 the Caricature theatre in Cardiff commissioned him to create a stage adaptation of Gogol’s The Overcoat, and subsequently he wrote and directed a number of his own works, including Which One of Me?, staged at the University of Dublin.
He had also designed puppets in Dublin for a production of Stravinsky’s Pulcinella in the mid-50s, and in later years he worked with Barry Smith’s Theatre of Puppets in London and with Christopher Leith, for whom he painted masks for a production of Beowulf that in 1979 was seen at the National Theatre.
Another string to Derek’s bow was his creation of a percussion ensemble called Sculpted Sound, which gave public performances in the UK and Ireland from the late 80s and throughout the 2000s. The ensemble was an assemblage of metal objects and electrical components that he had salvaged from Kelly & Shiel’s warehouse in Dublin after his father’s firm closed down, and the objects served the dual purpose of being exhibited as sculptures and being taken on the road as percussion instruments.
A number of composers wrote pieces especially for the ensemble. The sound sculptures themselves appeared in exhibitions in Ireland and the UK, including one at the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art in London in 2000. Derek played in the ensemble himself during some of the concerts.
From 1978 to 1998 Derek added landscape gardening to his creative pursuits, and in the mid-90s he became involved in psychotherapy and counselling, especially in relation to men’s personal problems. His outstanding attribute was empathy, listening “with the third ear”, always positively engaged, gently supportive and never judgmental.
He is survived by his brother, Brian, six nephews and three nieces.
