32 Facts About Romeo Toogood

Romeo Toogood ARCA HRUA was an Ulster artist and teacher who specialized in landscape painting.

Romeo Charles Toogood was born in Belfast on 6 May 1902.

Romeo Toogood was the son of a stone-carver, Charles Toogood, who had moved from England to work on the construction of Belfast City Hall.

Romeo Toogood was married to Anne in 1932 and had four children, one of whom died at the age of six.

Romeo Toogood began his professional training at Belfast School of Art in 1922 and graduated in 1925.

Romeo Toogood's funds did not last the three years that Toogood had intended, therefore he successfully petitioned the College administrators to allow him to complete a year early.

Romeo Toogood returned to Belfast in 1930 where he was to enter his first teaching post in 1931 at Larne Technical School.

Romeo Toogood moved to Down High School in 1933 and worked part-time until 1948.

Romeo Toogood became a member of the Belfast Art Society in 1927.

In 1933 Romeo Toogood joined the newly formed Northern Ireland Guild of Artists inaugural exhibition at the State Buildings on Arthur Street, Belfast.

Romeo Toogood presented three paintings with the Ulster Academy of Arts, the successor to the Belfast Art Society, in 1934, Islandmagee, Dungannon, and The Backyard, at the Old Museum Arts Centre.

Romeo Toogood displayed two oils, one of which, The Backyard, was shown at the Old Museum in the same month.

In 1936 Romeo Toogood showed two paintings at the Royal Hibernian Academy, his only showing with the society.

Romeo Toogood was elected a member of ruling council at the Ulster Academy of Arts in 1936, and again in 1944.

Romeo Toogood contributed work to the Civil Defence Art Exhibition in 1943.

Romeo Toogood prefers a high skyline or none at all, and a broad landscape in which the brown ploughed fields, the dark hedges and the meadows, the slate roofs and white-washed gables make a pleasing pattern of unemphatic but subtly related colour, organised mainly by manipulation of diagonal tensions.

Romeo Toogood contributed two paintings in the October 1945 Ulster Academy exhibition, including a watercolour and an oil, which the Northern Whig's reviewer lists amongst the "notable" works.

Romeo Toogood was to suffer from depression for the rest of his life and was to effect his early retirement.

Twenty-four of the works from the CEMA collection, including Romeo Toogood's painting, were later presented at their Donegall Place gallery in 1954.

Romeo Toogood contributed one painting called Little White Horse to the Ulster Academy of Arts exhibition in 1948.

In 1948 Romeo Toogood joined the teaching staff at Friends School Lisburn where he remained for a year before his appointment as the master of painting and drawing at Belfast College of Art.

Romeo Toogood was to remain at the art college until his retirement in 1963.

Romeo Toogood offered two oils Sammy's Boats, Ballintoy and Her New Suit in the 1957 show hosted by the Belfast Art College Association at the Stranmillis Art Gallery.

Six months later Romeo Toogood was back at the Belfast Museum and Art Gallery for the annual display by the members of the Royal Ulster Academy, when he showed one work, an oil of the Clarendon Dock at Belfast harbour.

Romeo Toogood contributed a singular painting, William to the 1963 annual exhibit of the Royal Ulster Academy of Arts, and a further two paintings, On the Road to BallyLesson and Ballylesson, to the eighty-fourth exhibition in 1964.

Romeo Toogood had exhibited there once before in a group show of 1949.

Romeo Toogood returned to the Magee Gallery in July 1964 with contributions to the Summer Exhibition, alongside Frank McKelvey, Dennis Osborne, Colin Middleton and William Conor.

Romeo Toogood was elected an Honorary Academician of the Royal Ulster Academy in the same year.

In 1965 Romeo Toogood joined twelve Ulster artists including Alice Berger-Hammerschlag, Olive Henry, and Mercy Hunter in a diverse exhibition of landscape paintings at the Arts Council Of Northern Ireland Gallery.

Romeo Toogood showed posthumously with four pictures in the Royal Ulster Academy's annual exhibition of 1966.

Romeo Toogood was survived by his wife Anne, two sons and a daughter.

Romeo Toogood's legacy was summarised by the Director of the Arts Council for Northern Ireland Kenneth Jamison in an essay entitled Painting and Sculpture when he wrote:.