Snoddy, Theo 1922-2008 (Theodore John Snoddy)

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born November 30, 1922, in Lurgan, County Armagh, Northern Ireland; died June 12, 2008. Purchasing agent, art critic, art consultant, journalist, and author. Snoddy spent forty years as the purchasing manager for the (Belfast) News Letter, from about 1937 to 1977. For twenty of those years he was the newspaper's hockey correspondent. More important, for thirty years he was also the paper's art critic, and he became somewhat of an expert on Irish artists. Snoddy also became an art curator and consultant for Ulster Television. Combining his experience as a purchasing agent with his love for art, he spent more than fifteen years expanding the network's art collection until, by 2004, it was reportedly the largest such collection in the country. During this period, he once told CA, he frequently consulted an aged and outdated dictionary of Irish artists published by W.G. Strickland in 1913, finding it woefully inadequate. In 1996 Snoddy published his own lexicon, The Dictionary of Irish Artists: Twentieth Century. The volume was praised for its scope, its depth, and its objectivity. Snoddy included entries for many obscure and neglected artists, both professional and amateur, but he intentionally omitted living artists. In 2002 he released a revision, adding recently deceased artists and others previously undiscovered. Snoddy's scholarship resulted in a reference work that, according to some, would become a standard in its specialized field.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Times (London, England), June 28, 2008, p. 71.