TP Flanagan studied at Belfast College of Art. In 1954 he began teaching at St Mary´s College of Education, where he remained for 28 years, becoming head of the art department in 1965. After his retirement he became a full-time painter. In 1964 he was elected an academician of the Royal Ulster Academy, and was its president from 1977 to 1983.

Flanagan´s landscapes often derive theirinspiration from the scenery of counties Fermanagh, Donegal and Sligo. Characterised by a simplification of form and tone, Flanagan´s approach to landscape is to reduce it to its bare essentials. In Two Islands, the pigments and application of
paint reflect the moody atmosphere of a typical Irish day, almost to the point of abstraction. For Flanagan a painting is a painting and not a depiction of a particular place. As his close friend Séamus Heaney wrote: ‘Occasionally they are dramatic and manifestly related to a local geography. More often it is a name in the title that reminds us that the ghosted forms once possessed the lineaments of a place.´

A retrospective of his work was held at the Arts Council Gallery, Belfast, in 1977, and in 1994-95 a major retrospective was held at the Ulster Museum, Belfast; the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery, Dublin; and the Stadsmuseum, Gothenburg, Sweden. Apart from occasional trips to the United States and Europe, he has spent most of his working life painting in Ireland.

— JOB