Artist Paints All 11 Roy Keane Red Cards
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Seánie Harte has documented all 11 of Roy Keane's Manchester United red cards in a 'Red Card series' of oil pastel paintings, with the exhibition Sent Off opening at Hen's Teeth in Dublin on 3 September.
- Each painting is paired with a quote from Keane's Stick to Football podcast, including his 1995 defense of stamping on Gareth Southgate: 'Gareth deserved that. Gareth lunged at me … he tried to break my leg!'
- Harte, 36, is a Dublin-trained graphic designer who returned to painting only two years ago for a creative outlet beyond designing billing systems, first posting the works on Instagram before selling prints online.
- The artist also paints other nostalgic football moments — Eric Cantona's 1995 Crystal Palace lunge, David Beckham's 1998 World Cup red card in France, Troy Parrott's Ireland winner against Hungary, and an Irish fan taunting Cristiano Ronaldo's November World Cup-qualifier sending-off.
- A former Keane teammate told Harte's girlfriend the pundit 'would probably love them but say he doesn't'; Keane's representatives did not respond to a request for comment, and a director of the Saipan film has already praised the work.
- Harte plans to expand the oeuvre to depict the more positive achievements of Keane's decorated midfield career, having initially intended only one or two red card paintings before the series gained traction.
Why it matters: The cheeky premise works because Keane himself supplied the deadpan one-liners — without his podcast candor, Harte's loose figurative paintings of tackles and stampings would read as glorifying violence rather than defusing it with humor. A director of the *Saipan* film is already publicly praising the work ahead of the 3 September opening at Hen's Teeth, marking Harte's first major exhibition just two years after he picked up a paintbrush again.
Ask SkimNews
