Ms Bayliss died after she was struck by a car on the evening of Monday, December 8, in the village of Myshall in Co Carlow where she lived for the last 20 years of her life.
Born in Kilkenny in 1940, Ms Bayliss was the daughter of Capt HTT Bayliss RN and Patricia née Loftus of Mount Loftus in Goresbridge, Co Kilkenny.
Mourners at Ms Bayliss’ funeral mass in the Church of Exaltation of the Holy Cross in Myshall heard how Ms Bayliss had a passion for art that she could not ignore, despite the disapproval of her parents.
“If there’s one adjective that could never be used about Philippa, it was to say she was conventional,” said her brother Jack, during his sister’s eulogy, as laughter echoed around the church and heads nodded in agreement.
“From her earliest days, she was driven to paint, it was in her soul and despite the disapproval of our parents, with whom she didn’t always have the most easy relationship, she stuck to painting.”
The late Philippa Bayliss. Photo credit: Philippa Bayliss’ website
Ms Bayliss’ determination to stay true to her craft paid off when she earned a scholarship to a top art school in London called The Byam Shaw School of Painting.
Even though Ms Bayliss was just a teenager at the time, internationally acclaimed artists were mesmerised by her work.
“When Philippa was a teenager, she was coming back from somewhere in Europe where she had been sent to stay with relatives and on the ship on the way back to Ireland, she was sitting up on deck sketching with her sketch book,” recalled Jack.
“Internationally famous artist, Salvador Dalí, happened to be one of the passengers and he saw her and he went across and he said ‘can I see your sketch book?’.
“Philippa was too shy to answer but she handed the sketch book over and he looked through and he said, ‘you must be an artist’. And so she was and art has been her love ever since.”
Ms Bayliss has always been “comfortable in her own skin”, and in addition to painting, she loved gardening, with flowers often serving as her muse.
Many of Ms Bayliss’ garden inspired paintings have been displayed in art galleries across the world, including at home in Ireland and in galleries in England and America. Her paintings are also displayed in private art collections worldwide.
In 1967, Ms Bayliss became the first curator at Castletown House in Co Kildare.
In 1972, she moved to Ardclough in Co Kildare and returned to painting. Fast forward to 1976 and Ms Bayliss held her first solo exhibition at the Neptune Gallery in Dublin.
Ms Bayliss’ star was on the rise as more and more galleries started displaying her work. She held solo exhibitions at the Image Gallery, Kennedy Gallery and the Origin Gallery in Dublin, as well as at the Blenheim Gallery in Notting Hill Gate in London and the Gallery of Interior Design in New York.
The late Philippa Bayliss. Photo: RIP.ie
But despite her success, Ms Bayliss remained grounded. “She was a person with a great many friends and acquaintances, high and low,” said Jack.
“To use the words of Rudyard Kipling, ‘she could walk with kings, but didn’t lose the common touch’. She was friends with people like Mick Jagger, but on the other hand, she was a friend of old Ciss, who lived up the hill above where my mother lived and Ciss was one of the last people I knew who did all her cooking over an open fire in a simple cottage.
“Philippa was anti-establishment,” added Jack. “She was never elected to the Royal Horticultural Academy of Art (RHA), but I suspect that those of her contemporary artists who know her would say that a lot of her paintings were better than many of the paintings which were elected to the RHA.”
Aside from her painting, Ms Bayliss was a proud member of her adopted community of Myshall where she lived for the last two decades of her life.
“She became a real member of the community here. She loved being here in Myshall. She loved the people, she loved the post office, she loved the pub – although some might say a bit too much,” said Jack jokingly with a smile as he came to the end of the eulogy.
“And now, she will be painting with angels in heaven,” he concluded as he started to cry while applause erupted in the church.