Irish Art Auction by de Veres Art Auctions

Irish Art Auctioneers & Valuers

IRISH ART AUCTION Tuesday 8th December

Irish Art Auctioneers & Valuers

AUCTION: Tuesday 8th December, commencing 6pm ON VIEW:

at 35 Kildare Street, Dublin 2 December 1st-8th: 10-5pm each day

Please refer to our website as viewing times could be subject to change CONTACT:

01 6768300

BIDDING: All timed bidding conducted through deveres.ie platform Telephone bidding available on request. COLLECTION: From 35 Kildare Street PURCHASER FEES: 25% (incl VAT)

de Veres 35 Kildare Street, Dublin 2 01 676 8300 www.deveres.ie deveresArtAuctions

@deveresartauctions

PSRA Licence No. 002261

John de Vere White john@deveres.ie

Rory Guthrie roryguthrie@deveres.ie

We would like to thank the following people who assisted in the cataloguing: Frances Ruane, Aidan Dunne, Eamonn Mallie, Denise Ferran, Karen Reihill, Christopher Ashe, Oliver Sears, Jonathan Benington, Colin Rafferty.

Please view DVTV on our website for additional video highlights.

Irish Art Auctioneers & Valuers

All bidding for this auction takes place online. Please visit www.deveres.ie to register an account. BIDDING IS NOW OPEN AND REMAINS OPEN UNTIL 6pm ON DECEMBER 8th. At 6pm lot 1 will be scheduled to close, with each lot closing at I minute intervals. However please note that late bids will trigger a two minute extension to the bidding time, to allow rival bidders an opportunity to respond. This will delay subsequent lots, as each lot closes numerically. Full details are on our website. TELEPHONE BIDDING IS AVAILABLE FOR THIS AUCTION Please note there is a ‘live chat’ facility on our website, whereby you can talk directly to the auctioneer during the auction. All works are on view at 35 Kildare Street. Front cover: Lot 19, William Scott, CBE, RA, 1913-1989, STILL LIFE (1946) Back cover: Lot 29, Basil Blackshaw, HRHA, HRUA, 1932-2016, THE GAWKY COCKEREL Inside front: Lot 36, Donald Teskey, RHA, b.1956, COASTLINE NARRATIVE III Inside back: Lot 12 (detail), Jack Butler Yeats, RHA, 1871-1957, FENIT LIGHTHOUSE, CO KERRY - KERRY FISHERMAN (1927)

1 Donald Teskey, RHA, b.1956 GATEWAY Acrylic on paper, 11¾" x 11¾" (30 x 30cm).

Provenance: Rubicon Gallery, Dublin (label verso).

€2000 - 3000

2 Maurice MacGonigal, PRHA, 1900-1979 ON THE WATER’S EDGE Oil on board, 12" x 16" (30.5 x 40.6cm), signed.

€2000 - 4000

3 Patrick Collins, HRHA, 1911-1994 BURNING MOUNTAIN Oil on board, 12" x 16" (30.5 x 40.6cm), signed; inscribed verso.

Provenance: The David Hendriks Gallery, Dublin (label verso).

Sligo-born Collins often remarked that his life was shaped by the local countryside, drawing again and again on his memories of roaming the fields of his childhood. Rather than depicting picturesque views, he wanted his paintings to conjure up the feelings he experienced when confronting nature. In Burning Mountain, probably painted in the mid-’60s, there is a suggestion of ridges, hills, small fires, and even the barest hint of a man in the foreground. The fires were potentially dangerous, and we get a sense of this through the agitated brushwork that ruffles the surface, punctuated by nervous black lines. Instead of a calm horizontal horizon, the composition is dominated by a dramatic diagonal line. Collins captures the physical feeling of being there, and of the anxiety of that moment in the silvery grey light, amid the smoke, mist and blustery wind. In Burning Mountain one can see how by steering clear of precise representation the artist was able to reveal something of its essence. Collins wanted to express this vision in contemporary terms by accepting the inherent flatness of the picture surface, reducing the subject to a few nearly abstract lines. These lines are the framework on which Collins can hang the voids, and it’s in these empty spaces that we find the poetry, the nuances of light and texture, the delicate touch of the brush, the modulations of colour.

Dr Frances Ruane HRHA, November 2020 €3000 - 5000 7

4 William John Leech, RHA, 1881-1968 GARDENS, NICE Oil on board, 8¾" x 10¾" (22.2 x 27.3cm), signed; label on back of the painting, in Leech’s handwriting ‘Gardens, Nice’ by William J. Leech R.H.A.

Provenance: The Dawson Gallery, Dublin (label verso).

After Leech’s meeting of May Botterell in 1919 and the subsequent breakup of his marriage to his beautiful American wife, Elizabeth, the subject of The Convent Garden and The Sunshade (both NGI), Leech’s life took a different direction, as did the subject matter of his paintings. Previously his subject matter in France had been in Brittany and especially Concarneau, where he painted the fishermen, the harbour and the surrounding landscape. May Botterell was a wealthy woman, not just from her marriage to Percy, an eminent solicitor with a large London practice, but she, herself was highly accomplished, from a wealthy North of England family. Leech’s painting trips to France then became the area above the Côte d’Azur. In 1921, Leech rented a house at St. Jeannet, which is a hillside village, in the foothills above Nice with its distant, panoramic views of the Mediterranean below. From 1921 until 1926, during Leech’s annual trips to France, the subject matter he focused on was that of St. Jeannet and the nearby coastal area of Nice, with its rich flora and fauna which flourished in the higher temperatures of the region, so different from the Northern Brittany region. In Gardens, Nice Leech captures the scene, en plein air, using a small board, to capture the women and children in oils, gathered under a tree, to the left of the painting. Working out of doors, Leech, simply describes the group with bold brushstrokes of colour with a freedom of depiction capturing movement among the group. His palette is one of burnt and raw umber with Naples Yellow and soft orange to give highlight. The use of Naples Yellow, exudes heat from the bands of yellow, which permeate the entire painting, to the interjection of contrasting viridian greens across the foreground, which focus attention on the family group under the tree. The soft greens of the overhanging branches of a tree in the foreground, encloses the scene and focuses on the family group at play in the Garden, Nice. Leech exhibited several works at the R.H.A, entitled Red roof, Nice and The port Nice in the period 1928-1929, during which period, this work probably belongs to.

Dr Denise Ferran, November 2020

€4000 - 6000

5 William John Leech, RHA, 1881-1968 A CORNFIELD, SUFFOLK Oil on board, 10¼" x 14" (26 x 35.5cm), signed; inscribed verso; in Leech’s handwriting, is written ‘A Cornfield, Suffolk’ by William J. Leech R.H.A.

Provenance: Purchased from The Dawson Gallery, Dublin (inscribed label verso).

In A Cornfield, Suffolk sunlight baths the middle distance, focusing on the rows of stooks of corn, which form intersecting diagonals which carry the viewer’s eye to the farm building and the houses on the hill beyond. The pinkish toned under painting allows the work to glow with warmth, conveying a hot summer’s day from the heat of the sky down to the sunlit farm fencing in the immediate foreground. The composition is classically Leech, with the green foliage of the hedge in the middle distance, which veer from right to left and which leads the eye to the buildings on the horizon. The open gate in the foreground allows the viewer enter this summer scene of a lush South of England countryside. The immediacy and vibrancy of the brushwork, in conveying the scene, is a hallmark of Leech painting en plein air, so different from his friend and supporter Dermod O’Brien, former President R.H.A, as exemplified in O’Brien’s more academic work The Estuary of the Shannon which also incorporates rows of corn in stooks, painted in 1935 (Coll. Ulster Museum). Leech’s A Cornfield, Suffolk is probably painted a few years later, after the outbreak of the Second World War when Leech and his partner, May Botterell escaped from the London bombings, which damaged Leech’s Steele’s Studio, to relatives in the countryside. Both Leech’s relatives and May Botterell’s relatives generously gave the couple safe lodgings during the war years, with Leech repaying this kindness with his paintings. Leech submitted a work to the Royal Academy, in 1940, from The Dilly, Upper Breeding, Sussex, which was the address of May Botterell’s eldest son Jim and his wife Eileen. Jim was the eldest of May’s three children to her husband Percy Botterell, a very successful London lawyer who commissioned Leech to paint a portrait of his wife in 1919. This meeting resulted in May Botterell becoming Leech’s partner until they eventually married in 1953, after Percy’s death, in 1952. Upper Breeding, Sussex, is just North of Shoreham-by-Sea and in the midst of the South Downs and it provided Leech, with suitable painting locations which replaced the landscapes of France, which he never again visited.

Dr Denise Ferran, November 2020 €5000 - 7000

6 Mainie Jellett, 1897-1944 ACHILL DONKEYS Gouache, 8½" x 11¼" (21.6 x 28.4cm), signed & dated 1938.

Provenance: The Dawson Gallery, Dublin (label verso).

€3000 - 5000

7 Tony O’Malley, HRHA, 1913-2003 WINTER LINES, ST. IVES Oil on board, 17¾" x 10½" (45.1 x 26.6cm), signed & dated 1974.

Provenance: Hillsboro Fine Art, Dublin (label verso).

€3000 - 5000

8 Norah McGuinness, HRHA, 1901-1988 ST. GEORGE’S CHURCH, DUBLIN Oil on board, 18¼" x 24" (46.3 x 61cm), signed; signed & inscribed verso.

Located in Hardwicke Place and designed by Francis Johnston it is considered to be one of his finest works.

€10000 - 15000

9 Kitty Wilmer O’Brien, RHA, 1910-1982 WESTPORT, CO MAYO Gouache, 10¾" x 14½" (27.3 x 36.8cm), signed, inscribed verso.

€1000 - 2000

10 Kitty Wilmer O’Brien, RHA, 1910-1982 CROAGH PATRICK, CO MAYO Gouache, 12" x 16" (30.5 x 40.7cm), signed.

€800 - 1200

11 Paul Henry, RHA, 1877-1958 WESTERN LANDSCAPE (1932-5) Oil on canvas, 16" x 24" (40.6 x 61cm), signed.

Literature: Paul Henry, Paintings, Drawings and Illustrations by S. B. Kennedy, cat. no. 800 (p.259).

Provenance: Private collection since the 1950s.

The mountains in the background are almost certainly the Maumturks viewed south-eastwards from Kylemore Lough, near Letterfrack, Co. Galway. Painted in the period 1932-1935, when the artist’s palette, like his mood, lightened as his domestic problems – final separation from his first wife, Grace, and financial difficulties – were overcome. The landscape remains supreme, with the panoramic view inviting the viewer in and showing Henry at his most Impressionistic, painting with bravura confidence. The bold impasto strokes that render the reflections on the lake are indicative of an artist by now completely at ease with both his subject and medium.

€120000 - 160000

12 Jack Butler Yeats, RHA, 1871-1957 FENIT LIGHTHOUSE, CO KERRY - KERRY FISHERMAN (1927) Oil on panel, 9” x 14” (22.8 x 35.6cm), signed, inscribed verso. Fenit Lighthouse in Kerry was built on Samphire Island in the 1850s. A view towards Dingle is in the background. We are grateful to Professor Mary McAuliffe of U.C.D for assistance in cataloguing this work. Provenance: Purchased from the artist by Herr E. Hempel, 1940; Purchased by I.M. Esses, Toronto in the 1960’s and by descent; Sothebys, September 2020, lot 36 (catalogue note below). Literature: Hilary Pyle, Jack B Yeats, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oil Paintings, Andre Deutsch, 1992, Vol.1, no. 339, p.308. Exhibited: Dublin, Engineers Hall, Paintings, 25 February - 5 Marc 1927, no. 22; Birmingham, Ruskin Gallery, Paintings of Ireland, 23 May - 4 June 1927, no. 16; London Tooth, Paintings, 14 March - 5 April 1928, no. 33. The present work depicts a local fisherman whose strong features and confident stance offer a heroic figure, typical of Yeats’ depiction of sea-faring men. Staring to the distance and wrapped in a heavy overcoat, he fills the composition while behind him is the coast of Kerry, the waters of which he would know intimately through years on the sea. Immediately below him boats are moored with a fellow fisherman attending them – the flash of silvery blues suggesting they are unloading their catch. Since his childhood growing up among the quays of Sligo, Yeats developed a wonder and admiration for seafaring figures – in line with his lifelong occupation with distinct characters on the fringes of society who populate many of his works. The present painting dates to the late 1920s. Yeats had painted Kerry before, but these earlier works focus solely on the coastline and are devoid of figures, such as Kerry Landscape (private collection, sold Adam’s, Dublin, 28 September 2016, lot 10). By the 1920s, local figures, often solitary, appear in Yeats’ oils. The present work is a characteristic example and executed when Yeats’ style remained relatively realist with the figures delineated, giving them an emphatic presence. However, by the end of the decade his brushwork was loosening, forms were dissolving and colour was more freely applied. We see the onset of such developments in the present work which has a fluid, painterly surface anticipating the unique style of Yeats’ later work. By that stage, the sea and sea-faring figures persist but in a more abstract way, and the sea itself often serves a metaphysical purpose. Dr Roisin Kennedy

€100000 - 150000

13 Roderic O’Conor, 1860-1940 STILL LIFE WITH CAULIFLOWER, VASE OF FLOWERS AND A PLATTER (c.1923-26) Oil on canvas, 20" x 24" (51 x 61cm), inscribed on the stretcher by the artist: Roderic O’Conor Roses No. 12 (referring to a previous canvas applied to the same stretcher), and rue du Cherche Midi (the artist’s address), stamped on the reverse: ‘atelier O’CONOR’. Provenance: Studio of the artist, sold Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 7 February 1956; Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 14 October 1968; Schoneman Galleries, New York; Godolphin Gallery, Dublin, 1981; Private collection, Belfast. Exhibited: Possibly Salon d’Automne, Paris, 1923, no. 1528 ‘Roses’; London, Barbican Art Gallery, and tour to Ulster Museum Belfast, National Gallery, Dublin and Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, Roderic O’Conor 1860-1940, 1985, no. 84, reproduced. Literature: Jonathan Benington, Roderic O’Conor, a Biography with a Catalogue of his Work, Irish Academic Press, Dublin 1992, page 220, no. 251. In the 1920s, now in his sixties, O’Conor injected new life into the time-honoured tradition of the ‘kitchen’ still life – compositions featuring everyday food stuffs and vessels used in the preparation of meals, as celebrated in the work of Northern European artists such as Willem Kalf and Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin. O’Conor abandoned his former still life props – the pieces of Chinese ceramics, the bronze sculptures and the brightly coloured drapes – that had given some of his earlier pictures an air of artistic refinement. Instead he picked plain serving dishes and everyday cooking ingredients such as shallots, tomatoes, cauliflowers and carrots with their tops still attached, reveling in their contrasting shapes, colours and textures. It was the stuff of the earth, a return perhaps to his days amongst the peasants in Brittany, but with a sideways gesture of solidarity towards the food obsession of his School of Paris associate, Chaïm Soutine, one of whose still lifes was in his private collection. Like the Russian, O’Conor took genuine delight in choosing, handling, arranging and painting these forms in his spacious Parisian studio. He was enthralled by the play of natural daylight across their uneven surfaces, especially when placed close to one of his large studio windows, accentuating the tonal contrasts of the forms, the tabletop and the background. An inscription by O’Conor on the stretcher bar of this canvas suggests that the title he gave it was ‘Roses’, perhaps thinking that, by drawing the viewer’s attention to the flowers rather than the vegetables, he would render it more appealing to potential buyers. Irrespective, however, of the objects’ relative appeal, the entire canvas has been executed with great painterly panache: from the lightest of dragged brushstrokes in the tabletop, to the heavy, almost abstract palette knife work used in the cauliflower and flowers, and finally the delicately brushed shadows and creamy highlights of the serving platter. O’Conor’s ‘kitchen’ still lifes were admired and purchased by several of his contemporaries. A related larger painting of a cauliflower (without the flowers and platter) was bought direct from the artist by the English novelist, Somerset Maugham, who had known the Irishman since 1905. Others works containing vegetables and fruit were acquired by the English critic Roger Fry, the French artist Maximilien Luce and the American Charles Hall Thorndike. In 1927 an O’Conor flower piece, ‘Le pot chinois’, was purchased by the French State and is preserved in the Musée d’Orsay.

Jonathan Benington, 18 October 2020

€60000 - 90000

14 Anton Hirschig, 1867-1939 FEEDING TIME Oil on canvas, 22" x 29" (54.75cm x 73cm), signed with monogram & inscribed Brasschaat 1909. Antonius Matthias Hirschig was born on 18 February 1867 in Naarden, a town in the province of North Holland in the Netherlands. He moved to the country village of Auvers-sur-Oise, 30 kilometers from Paris in June 1890. This quiet hamlet lured many nineteenth-century artists from Paris to its sunlit wheat fields, clear skies and charming homes and gardens. Artist Charles Daubigny arrived in 1860 and never left. Manet, Cézanne, Renoir, Camille Pissaro and Vincent Van Gogh all lived there for a time. Hirschig lodged with Van Gogh at the Auberge Ravoux from around 17 June 1890 to shortly after Van Gogh’s death on 29th July 1890. He had been introduced by Van Gogh’s brother, Theo, and he occupied the attic room next to Van Gogh’s. These two rooms can still be seen at the Inn today, known as Maison van Gogh. Two of Hirschigs paintings, ‘Undergrowth’ and ‘Peasants Resting in the Fields’, today hang on the walls of the room he occupied. Van Gogh was hugely productive in Auvers, where he paid 3.5 francs per month to lodge at Auberge Ravoux. In the three months he stayed there he completed almost seventy paintings and some of his best-known works. Along with numerous landscapes, he made portraits, including one of Adeline Ravoux, the innkeepers’ daughter. Anton Hirschig is mentioned in three of Van Gogh’s letters. At first Van Gogh thought Hirschig too “gentil” to be an artist and questioned whether he would ever amount to anything. However, in what was to be Van Gogh’s last letter (to his brother Theo), he softens his position and says that he thinks Hirschig has begun to understand things a little better. The day Vincent Van Gogh shot himself in the chest, a fatal wound, July 27, 1890, Anton Hirschig summoned the physician and also notified Theo who arrived in time before he died. Hirschig remained at Van Gogh’s bedside before returning to his neighboring bed. “He was lying in his garret under a zinc roof. It was terribly hot... He shouted all night, shouted a lot!”, he recalled in a letter in 1911. Hirschig subsequently assisted at Van Gogh’s funeral and left Auvers for good shortly after.

€8000 - 12000

15 Grace Henry, HRHA, 1868-1953 BOATS ON A RIVER Oil on canvas, 20" x 24" (51 x 61cm), signed.

â&#x201A;¬5000 - 7000

16 Louis le Brocquy, HRHA, 1916-2012 IMAGE OF FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA Watercolour, 9½" x 7¾" (24 x 20cm), signed & dated ’77 verso.

Provenance: Galeria Maeght, Barcelona (label verso).

Exhibited: Louis le Brocquy, 88 Studies Towards an Image of Federico Garcia Lorca. Galeria Maeght, Barcelona (October 1978); Galerie Kreisler Dos, Madrid (December 1978); Fundación Rodríguez-Acosta, Granada (May 1979). Cat. text: Claude Esteban, Arqueología del rostro [Spanish/French]. Commenting on the series le Brocquy noted, “I am aware that that vision lies far from my own country which gave birth to Yeats and Joyce. Lorca, far away, lending his Iberian temperament and his voice to the cries of his own people, echoing within his ‘astonished flesh’. For me, an Irishman, it was curiously enough the plays of Synge which provided the key to an understanding of Lorca’s fierce, lyrical world. Synge, with his ear pressed against the floorboards, passionately noting the marvelous vernacular of the Wicklow people in the room below. It was only quite recently that I was told by Mark Mortimer in Paris that Lorca knew and admired the works of John Millington Synge.”

€7000 - 10000 25

17 Louis le Brocquy, HRHA, 1916-2012 HEAD (1971) Oil on canvas, 40" x 40" (101.5 x 101.5cm), signed & dated ’71, Opus No. 265.

Provenance: Gimpel Fils Gallery, London (label verso).

Exhibited: Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, Paris, 5 April-20 May 1973.

The mid-’sixties marked a pivotal change in le Brocquy’s work, propelled by his visit in 1964 to the Musée de l’Homme, where the artist saw ancestral Polynesian clay skull heads with cowrie shells for eyes. These heads were remarkably similar to ancient Celtic images, where the head was the embodiment of the human being. This sparked an interest in Celtic art and culture, with le Brocquy being drawn to the Celtic idea of the head as a magic box that contains the spirit. In Dorothy Walker’s 1981 biography of le Brocquy, she quoted the artist: “For over fifteen years I have tried to draw from the depths of paper, or from the white canvas, a human face.” He went on to explain that the aim was “…to make visible, a lurking image, to identify, to name some trace or aspect of reality…” In 1969, Northern Ireland was rocked by intense political and sectarian rioting which developed into the ‘Troubles’. Le Brocquy’s terrified heads of the early ’70s express this horror with a hand turned palm outwards ordering a halt to this sustained war. Executed in 1971, Head conveys the anguish and suffering of the people in Northern Ireland. The effect of a distressed face emerging slowly within two delineated squares has powerful emotional impact. The austerity of the cool background, with its shifting, carefully modulated light, is the perfect foil for the emotional intensity of the head, where all the vibrant colour is concentrated. Le Brocquy remains the master of subtlety and restraint. Le Brocquy’s paintings draw on our past associations with religious images for their solemnity and grandeur. There isn’t the slightest hint of casual informality about them. The paintings have a formal symmetry, with an aura of light concentrated around the head in the tradition of medieval religious art. A hand pressing against the surface is a panic-stricken cry for help. The open mouth is a primal scream. The terror of the Northern Troubles is distilled so that we end up with its essence

Dr Frances Ruane HRHA, November 2020 €40000 - 60000

18 Barry Flanagan, OBE, RA, 1941-2009 FORM IN A STORM NO.1 (2002) Bronze (unique) with circular base, 8½" x 6" (22 x 15cm), signed & dated 2002. Provenance: Waddington Custot, Mayfair, London; Private Collection, Califiornia; Private Collection, United Kingdom. Born in Wales, Flanagan lived in London and, later, in Dublin, becoming an Irish citizen. In this country many people formed an affectionate attachment to his work when in 2006 ten of his famous hare sculptures were temporarily installed along Dublin’s O’Connell Street. He’s known all over the world for his large dancing hares, like the one at the entrance to IMMA, and another outside AIB on Serpentine Avenue. They all take on human qualities, celebrating a sense of exuberance and fun in the human spirit. Flanagan approach is playful and irreverent, without a trace of pomposity or pretension. I recall first seeing Flanagan’s work in 1980, when he was invited to exhibit his ‘rope drawings’ in ROSC. A precursor of what was to follow over two decades later in pieces like Form in a Storm, these ropes were abstract drawings in space. Visually, Flanagan has always thought in linear terms, in the same way, perhaps, that ‘lines’ underpin the paintings of artists like Daumier or Toulouse Lautrec. In a Flanagan sculpture, the linear movement of a piece, rather than volume, is the main conveyer of emotion. It’s not surprising that he’s a wonderful draughtsman. Form in a Storm was included in the artist’s first exhibition of what he called ‘linear sculpture’, 3-dimensional drawings in bronze. Even with his large-scale pieces, the emotional key can be traced to early stages, when Flanagan bends and shapes the internal linear armature that will form the sculpture’s core. That kind of thinking is made visible in linear sculptures like this one. You can easily imagine the artist spontaneously playing with the material as he twists, knots and bends it in space.

F orm in a Storm has a deliberately ambiguous title: is the ‘form’ a hare, an insect, a tree? Flanagan was interested in the commonality of forms in nature, some organic impulse or life-force that is also shared with humans. One catches teasing glimpses of a bounding hare, momentarily transformed into a tree that’s buffeted against the wind. One can see in the leaping, dancing upward thrust of Form in a Storm an optimistic buoyancy that is a common thread in his work. Dr Frances Ruane HRHA, November 2020

€8000 - 12000

19 William Scott, CBE RA, 1913-1989 STILL LIFE WITH FRYING PAN (1946) Oil on canvas, 18" x 24" (46 x 61cm), signed & dated 1946. Provenance: Roland, Browse and Delbanco, London; Piccadilly Gallery, London; Sotheby’s, London, 14 December 1966, lot 121a; Wilmott, Paul Gell; Private collection; Christie’s, London, 30 May 1997, lot 52 (as Still life with Frying Pan and Toasting Fork); Private collection Sotheby’s, London, 13 May 2005, lot 148 (as Still Life with Frying Pan).

Exhibited: Roland, Browse and Delbanco, London, Currents of Post Impressionism in France and England, July 1946, no. 20.

Literature: This work is No.103 in The William Scott Catalogue Raisonee.

William Scott was born in Scotland, but his Donegal-born father moved the family to Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, in 1924. He showed interest in art from a young age and eventually made his way to London when in 1931 he gained a place at the Royal Academy Schools. Over the following decades his reputation has grown steadily, becoming one of the most sought-after artists of his generation – not only in Ireland and the UK, but worldwide. The list of major public collections from every continent who have acquired Scott’s work is impressive, including the Museum of Modern Art (NY), the Guggenheim (NY), the Metropolitan Museum (NY), the Hirshhorn (Washington DC), the Tate Gallery (London), the V&A (London) and, closer to home, the National Gallery of Ireland, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, the Crawford Gallery and the Hugh Lane.

William Scott in his studio at Hallatrow, c1955 © James Scott

Scott is most commonly identified with still life paintings. Though many of his later works are highly abstracted, their roots are often in objects from a simple Irish country kitchen: pots, frying pans, toasting forks, knives and the like. These simple unpretentious objects reflect a distinct Northern Irish austerity. Even when the influence of American Abstract Expressionism on his paintings became stronger, Scott was constantly drawn back to more European-based figuration, with hints of his still life repertoire finding their way into the most abstract pictures. Throughout his career we have this push and pull between representation and abstraction, and this is evident even in this seemingly ‘realistic’ Still Life from Still Life in a Frame, c.1956 1946. It is a striking example of early Scott, showing how an abstract way of Painter’s props framed and photographed thinking underpins all his work. On one level it’s an image reflecting the austerity by William Scott. and rugged, unpretentious honesty of rural domestic life. On another level, it’s Photo: courtesy of William Scott Foundation an elegant, sophisticated arrangement of abstract forms where the artist has organised shapes to maximise visual tension. The table is a solid block that anchors the composition, but Scott’s use of diagonals set the picture in motion. Everything is carefully placed, huddled around a central point while simultaneously drawing eyes away from it, like the corners of the cloth and the fruit. However, the main event is the visual dialogue between the handle of the skillet and the counter-movement of the fork handle. All this, so subtle that it’s hardly noticed, gives the painting a certain frisson, a satisfying energy. These are the elements of a quintessential Scott.

Dr Frances Ruane RHA, November 2020 €200000 - 300000

â&#x20AC;&#x153; It is one of the earliest still-life compositions to include a frying pan, the object that above all others reminded Scott of his childhood in Enniskillen. Whether it was painted before or after The Frying Pan (cat. no. 102) is not known: it may be the case that Scott worked on the two paintings around the same time. Here, the smooth round shape of the pan is contrasted with the sharp-edged folds of the white cloth (reminiscent of the creases in the greaseproof paper used by the local fishmongers to wrap fish [see Mackerel with Plate and Paper, cat. no. 95, and Still Life, Fish, cat. no. 96]) and the prongs of the forkâ&#x20AC;?.

William Scott Foundation

Reginald Gray, 1930-2013 Born into a comfortable middle class Dublin family, the son of Percival Gray, a laboratory assistant in the Guinness Brewery and Elsie (née Bentley), Reginald grew up on Grove Avenue in Blackrock. Displaying an early artistic talent he began to exhibit at The Dublin Painters Gallery from 1949 as part of The Dublin Atelier, a group of young artists influenced by continental, expressionist, non-abstract artists like Bernard Buffett. Establishing a studio on Leeson Street, Gray came into contact with fellow artist Patrick Swift whose work he greatly admired. Although only three years his senior Swift was considerably more worldly and better travelled than Gray, having worked in both London and Paris in the late 40s making the acquaintance of Alberto Giacometti and Lucien Freud, the latter shared Swift’s studio on Baggot Street and, from 1950, on Hatch Street when he came on his regular visits to Ireland. Seeing the uncompromising and visceral nature of both artists’ output would profoundly impact Gray’s own development as a portrait artist. After briefly attending The National College of Art and Design, in 1953 Gray, short of funds, abandoned his Leeson Street studio and moved to rooms in the home of the established artist Cecil ffrench Salkeld who had taken an interest in Gray, not least because he was going out with his daughter, Celia. It was amongst this bohemian milieu that Gray was to meet a wide cross section of Ireland’s writers, painters and musicians and in Salkeld he found a mentor to hone his still nascent artistic talent. Salkeld also had a hand in obtaining paid work for Gray with Alan Simpson, director of the Pike Theatre in Dublin which was bringing avant garde and highly controversial theatre to a conservative Ireland still unsure how to digest such provocative productions as The Rose Tattoo by Tennessee Williams, The Quare Fellow by Brendan Behan and Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, all of which were stage designed by Gray. He also designed sets for various productions in the Gate and Globe theatres. Celia Salkeld’s sister, Beatrice, married Brendan Behan at Donnybrook Church in February 1955. Behan knew Gray from their work together on The Quare Fellow and as they were then dating sisters Brendan asked Reginald to be his best man on what was to be a raucous day. The wedding itself was a small, quiet affair with the Salkeld family, Reginald and close friends in attendance but no members of the Behan family at Brendan’s insistence. Reginald, as a non-Catholic, could not sign the Register, a duty which fell to Sacristan Joe Doyle, a future Fianna Gael TD for Dublin South East. They proceeded to Kennedy’s in Harolds Cross, Bewley’s on Westmoreland Street and, finally, The Lincoln’s Inn (and a rendition of the Culan by Behan) and then the newlyweds departed Ireland on the night boat to England and on to France. In 1957 Gray followed the well-worn artists’ path to London, painting at a studio in Bayswater and supporting himself by working as a window dresser for the department store, Whiteleys of Bayswater. In November 1958, he met Catherine Hall whom he would marry a month later at Caxton Hall Registry Office in Westminster. Catherine was to feature in much of his output between 1959 and 1962 and is the woman depicted in lot 20 - ‘Adam and Eve’ (1960), lot 22 - ‘Two People’ (1960/61) and lot 23 - ‘Girl at Screen’ (1961). All three of these paintings, as well as his portrait of Beckett are painted in egg tempera which he began to use after arriving in London and which would continue to be his medium of choice for the remainder of his career. As he describes it: “I was 27 years old and had just arrived to live in London, from Dublin. A book that I took out from Paddington lending library on the Italian Renaissance included a black and white reproduction of a portrait by Domenico Ghirlandaio 1449/94, titled ‘Costanza Caetani’ (collection National Gallery, London). I was overwhelmed by the beauty and austerity of the work and went to the Gallery to see the original, but found that it was not on display. I telephoned the Gallery and made an appointment to see the portrait. A Gallery official took me to a basement storeroom and at last I saw the egg tempera on panel of dear Constanza. Since that day… that portrait has lived deep inside of me both as a stimulant for living and for working…”

Reginald Gray, November 2002 (archive.com)

20 Reginald Gray, 1913-2013 ADAM AND EVE Tempera on wood panel, 48¼" x 21" (122.5 x 53.3cm), signed & dated ’60; signed verso. Provenance: The Caravan Gallery, New York, 1961 where purchased by Dr Norman Ortenreich, New York, by whom gifted to The Ortenreich Foundation for the Advancement of Science, New York. Dr Norman Ortenreich (1922-2019) was a New York dermatologist and is considered to be the father of modern hair transplantation. Dr Ortenreich created the Clinique range of skincare products for the Estée Lauder Company in 1968. It quickly became and remains the bestselling skincare brand in the U.S. and is the crown jewel of the Estée Lauder brands. He founded the Ortenreich Foundation for the Advancement of Science in 1961.

€15000 - 20000

In 1960 Eric Holder, principal of Abbott and Holder Gallery, invited Gray to hold his first solo exhibition with him. It proved to be a great success and led to further exhibitions at the same gallery in 1961 and 1962. Gray also exhibited at the Collectors Gallery on Portobello Road in 1961 and, at the behest of the actor Patrick Waddington, at the Caravan Gallery in New York also in 1961. It was exhibited in 1962 and acquired by Alan Simpson, who had directed the Irish premiere of Waiting for Godot in October 1955 and who knew Samuel Beckett well, suggested Gray fly to Paris and paint him. This Gray did and the finished portrait elicited the brief written response from Beckett to Gray – “You had a bloody good look at me!” The degree to which an external, observed reality can elicit an insight to the essential character of the sitter was a mainstay of both Freud, Gray and much of the London School of the 1950’s and the means by which they achieved this bound a somewhat disparate group in a common goal. In Freud’s Girl with Beret, (1951-2, Manchester City Art Gallery) the strongly lit, softly coloured head and shoulders seems to open a conversation about the sitter’s inner thoughts. The enlarged eyes offer a window to those thoughts and these features are all equally apparent in Gray’s Portrait of Samuel Beckett. A chance encounter with Francis Bacon at a pub in Queensway in 1960 led to another portrait of a significant Irishman by Gray. The Bacon painting was exhibited at Abbott and Holder in 1962 and acquired by Aubrey Beese who donated it to The National Portrait Gallery, London in 1975. It is perhaps Freud, Girl with Beret 1951-2, significant that two of Ireland’s greatest artists in their respective fields, Lucien Manchester A.G. C The Lucien Freud Archive both naturally inclined to eschew the sitter’s chair, were somehow convinced by a relatively unknown artist to sit to him and that he should reward them with works of considerable virtuosity capturing in incised, drawn and painted tempera the searing intellects that had elevated them to greatness. With the demise of his marriage to Catherine in 1962, Gray elected to leave London for Paris and he would remain there for the rest of his life producing portraits of sitters as diverse as poet Ted Hughes, playwright Harold Pinter, philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, sculptor Alberto Giacometti and actresses Juliette Binoche and Helena Bonham-Carter. Reginald Gray died from cancer in Paris on 29th March 2013.

Reginald Gray, Portrait of Francis Bacon 1960, N.P.G., London

“Fifty years have now passed since I left the Dublin College of Art and braved the wilderness of a life more inclined to ‘la Boheme’ than to the comforts of the ‘nine to five’. Out there… there are other artists who have influenced me, and others for whom I have had great admiration. I suppose the big influences of contemporaries have been Graham Sutherland, Lucien Freud and Mario Sironi. Those whom I have admired are Augustus John, William Coldstream and Francis Bacon”.

Reginald Gray, November 2002

21 Reginald Gray, 1913-2013 PORTRAIT OF SAMUEL BECKETT 1961 Tempera on wood panel, 36" x 18" (91.3 x 45.6cm), signed, inscribed & dated 1961 (MCMLXI). Painted in Paris in 1961. Alan Simpson, the Pike Theatre director, suggested Gray should paint a portrait of Samuel Beckett. Gray flew to Paris and worked on the portrait which was exhibited at the RHA, Dublin. Provenance: Collectors Gallery, Portobello, London; Private collection, Dublin.

Exhibited: Dublin, RHA, 1963, no. 53 (£78.15.0).

€10000 - 15000 34

22 Reginald Gray, 1913-2013 TWO PEOPLE Ink on tempera, 48" x 20" (121.9 x 50.8cm), signed. Provenance: The Caravan Gallery, New York, 1961 where purchased by Dr Norman Ortenreich, New York, by whom gifted to The Ortenreich Foundation for the Advancement of Science, New York.

â&#x201A;Ź5000 - 8000

23 Reginald Gray, 1913-2013 GIRL AT SCREEN Ink on tempera, 39½" x 27¾" (100.4 x 70.5cm), signed & dated 1961 (MCMLXI); signed & inscribed verso. Provenance: Abbot & Holder, London (label verso); The Caravan Gallery, New York, 1961 where purchased by Dr Norman Ortenreich, New York, by whom gifted to The Ortenreich Foundation for the Advancement of Science, New York.

€3000 - 5000 37

24 Daniel O’Neill, 1920-1974 PROFILE Oil on board, 24" x 20" (61 x 51cm), signed, inscribed verso.

Provenance: George McClelland Collection.

Exhibited: Dan O’Neill Selected Figurative Works, Octagon Gallery, Belfast, August 5-29 1987, cat No.23.

Painted in 1970, Profile marks a turning point in O’Neill’s life after he returned to live in Belfast during the emergence of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Living in London in the late 1960s O’Neill was dealing with the aftermath of a traumatic break-up of a long-term relationship and news media reports that violence had erupted close to his home in west Belfast. A chance encounter with art dealer George McClelland on route to Holyhead led him to move back home to prepare for a solo exhibition at McClelland’s May street gallery. But while preparations were being made for the show, O’Neill was deeply concerned how his work would be perceived in his native city. He had received critical acclaim in Belfast after his 1952 CEMA Retrospective at the Belfast Museum and Art Gallery (Ulster Museum) but how would the public receive him in 1970? Although he had been selling his work through the Dawson Gallery in Dublin, no Belfast audience had seen his work in eighteen years. Profile was among a number of works chosen from George McClelland’s collection for a small exhibition, Dan O’Neill Selected Figurative Works held at the Octagon Gallery in Belfast in August 1987. McClelland was the largest contributor to the show loaning thirteen paintings from the selected twenty-five works which reflected O’Neill’s development from 1940 to 1970. Subsidized by the Arts Council for Northern Ireland, the exhibition led to an increased awareness of O’Neill’s work. O’Neill suffered from depression in the 1940’s which led to an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. Taboo subjects in the 1950’s and 60’s some friends disguised O’Neill’s flaws by characterizing him as an ‘enigmatic’ or an ‘aloof’ figure when O’Neill needed to disengage from society. His late simplified motifs in vibrant colour could reflect a renewed self-esteem and confidence from returning home after receiving positive reviews from major newspapers. The subject of heads regularly appear throughout O’Neill’s oeuvre. Women can appear in profile or directly face the viewer. The sitters often represent women who played a significant role in his life; daughter, wife, partner, lover, or may be an individual who helped him during a stay in hospital. This may be a nurse, a fellow AA member, or social worker. Sometimes his head portraits depict the influence of other painting styles in art history or were a nod to painters he admired, Goya, Rouault, Picasso, Modigliani, Watteau, and Soutine. Profile may be ‘distanced from’ the viewer but O’Neill’s heads were deeply personal and while his palette had undergone a radical departure in 1969-70 from his earlier romantic period, the intensity of feeling was the same. In this work, O’Neill has purposely edited details allowing colour to act as his language to evoke emotion from the viewer.

Karen Reihill, Author of Daniel O’Neill, Romanticism & Friendships (published November, 2020) €35000 - 45000

25 Louis le Brocquy HRHA, 1916-2012 ST. STEPHENS GREEN, 1990 Watercolour, 7" x 10" (17.8 x 25.4cm), signed & dated 1990, Opus No. W1015.

€4000 - 6000

26 Patrick Swift, 1927-1983 THE CEMETERY Oil on canvas laid on board, 30" x 30" (76 x 76cm), inscribed verso. Rossetti Studios, in London was built in 1890 as an art school with a series of individual studios for occupation by artists. Patrick Swift and Nano Reid both attended here. In 1904 The Chelsea Art Club was established here by Sir William Orpen and Augustus John. Swift and Reid clearly were friends. Reid painted a portrait of Swift in 1950. In March of the same year a long essay in praise of Reid by Swift appeared in The Envoy, a literary magazine that Swift was involved with. The inscription on the back of the painting would suggest the Reid owned the painting at some stage.

€2000 - 4000

27 Barrie Cooke, HRHA, 1931-2014 SMALL RED NUDE Oil on canvas, 21½" x 25½" (54.6 x 64.7cm), signed, inscribed & dated 1998 verso.

€2000 - 4000

28 Barrie Cooke, HRHA, 1931-2014 LONG NUDE Oil on canvas, 72¾" x 72¾" (185 x 185cm), signed, inscribed & dated 2006 verso.

Provenance: The Kerlin Gallery (label verso).

Exhibited: IMMA; Crawford Gallery; Paris.

Barrie Cooke, English born, moved to live in Ireland in 1954 and came to be regarded as one of the leading contemporary artists of his time. As Aidan Dunne of The Irish Times wrote in his obituary, “he was an artist of great integrity; a passionate fisherman and a true lover of the natural world that was always central to his work”. Apart from his large, brave landscapes, loose and free flowing; his figurative works stand out. Never a painter to take the easy option his nudes are reminiscent of Bacon and Freud. Paint drips across the canvas with the sitter submerged in the paint. There is a sensuality but never any emphasis on producing the pretty picture. All Cooke’s painterly qualities can be seen in these two nudes (lots 27 and 28), one on a small scale and the other on a more monumental one.

€8000 - 12000 43

29 Basil Blackshaw, HRHA, HRUA, 1932-2016 THE GAWKY COCKEREL Oil on canvas, 40" x 34" (101.6 x 86.3cm), signed. Provenance: Acquired directly from the artist; Private Collection, Belfast and by descent. Horses, dogs and fighting cocks are emblematic of the main body of Basil Blackshaw’s works. Through many of these works Basil gives us an insight into the man himself. He was rooted in the countryside. He didn’t give a damn about travelling. He used to say to me “Doagh is abroad for me.” (Doagh was about three miles away from where he lived in Antrim). That remark spoke volumes about Basil. The world came to Blackshaw. Don’t ask me how. It seemed to me he caught so much in the wind. He was wonderfully in tune with nature. A colleague of mine, Maurice Cassidy, who gifted copies of my biography on Basil to a Paris artist friend and his fellow artists observed “why have we not heard of this painter? He has resolved all the problems of making pictures.” Basil was one of the smartest people I have known. He was an art delinquent, re-writing the rules of painting, dispensing with so much tradition and freeing himself from the rigours of college art. He was in reality, a child artist, unaware of inhibitions. He took chances as a painter. He once told me “I steal from good artists and bad artists. A bad artist can resolve a problem for you too. It is what you do with the theft when you have it.” He said. That is not to say, Basil did not pay a price for his art making. He did. Quite often he sat for weeks on end waiting for inspiration. He could be at the same time a bit of a knave like many creative people. On meeting playwright Brian Friel – Friel might ask “doing any painting Basil?” “Nah… the well is dry Brian.” He would say. On the other hand Blackshaw might ask Friel – “how is the writing going Brian?” “Hopeless, nothing doing.” Friel would reply. Both of them were probably lying to each other. Basil loved his roosters. There was nothing he didn’t know about fighting cocks. Like horses he knew their breed, seed and generation. He once told me he was in a bad way in Antrim Hospital when a Filipino nurse came to care for him. Knowing the history of cockfighting in the Philippines Basil asked the young nurse if she knew anything about cock fighting. She explained to him her grandfather had bred some famous roosters. Basil told me “I started to get better very quickly.” Gawky Cockerel on this sale is one of the finest cockerels I have ever seen by Basil. He painted another one on this scale. They are master-pieces. In this work the artist captures they very essence, energy and power of the bird. The colours lend to the fire in the bird’s belly, of necessity for its role in life. I knew the man who owned this gawky cockerel. He bought the work directly from Basil and this is critically important to any purchaser of a major work to know the provenance. I suspect the owner of this painting went and bought himself a big pair of brown boots to celebrate the procuring of Gawky Cockerel. Those brown boots to the cockerel owner was as important to him as the ash plant is to the cattle dealer about whom Heaney wrote in one of his poems. Perhaps this is a self portrait. Perhaps Blackshaw sees this cockerel as an extension of himself, living on the edge, slightly dangerously. Interestingly Basil only paints one bird in any painting. His focus is absolute. What we see in this painting is the confidence of the rooster, head stretched, chest out probably crowing after a big feed of corn. Blackshaw was an edge of society man. “How are you Basil?” People would ask. “Still lying under a tree, killing the odd rat and drinking a bottle of stout,” more often than not, was the response. He loved travellers, doggie men, horsey people and he especially enjoyed cockfighting. He told me he used to go cockfighting with Seamus Heaney’s father Paddy. Long Nancy’s on the Armagh Monaghan border was one of their favourite haunts. The purchaser of the Gawky Cockerel will have a lot about which to crow! Eamonn Mallie, November 2020

€50000 - 80000

30 Basil Blackshaw, HRHA, HRUA, 1932-2016 MARKET’S PEOPLE Pastel, 24½" x 24½" (62.2 x 62.2cm), signed; signed & inscribed verso.

Provenance: The Otter Gallery, Belfast, 1987 (label verso); Private Collection, Belfast.

€5000 - 7000

31 Breon O’Casey, 1928-2011 ROOSTER Acrylic on paper, 22½" x 29½" (57.1 x 74.8cm), signed & dated 2005; signed, inscribed & dated 2005 verso.

Provenance: The Peppercanister Gallery (label verso).

€1000 - 1500

32 Sean McSweeney, HRHA, 1935-2018 FLOWER IN THE POOL Oil on board, 9¾" x 13¾" (24.7 x 34.8cm), signed & dated ’92; signed & inscribed verso.

Provenance: Hillsboro Fine Art Gallery, Dublin (label verso).

€1000 - 1500 47

33 Louis le Brocquy, HRHA, 1916-2012 WOMAN WASHING Watercolour, 10" x 7" (26 x 18cm), signed & dated ’97, opus no. W1342. Provenance: Taylor Galleries, Dublin (label verso).

Exhibited: 1998, ‘Human Images: Early and Recent Works on Paper’.

€3000 - 5000 48

34 Nick Miller, b.1962 LOUGH MEELAGH Oil on linen, 12" x 16" (30.5 x 40.6cm), signed & dated 1999; signed & dated 1999 verso.

€800 - 1200

35 Hughie O’Donoghue, RA, b.1953 SOUVENIR OF ST. VALERY – CONCERNING THE VIOLATION OF BELGIUM Oil with collage on wood, 12" x 18" (30.5 x 45.7cm), signed, inscribed & dated 2006 verso. Provenance: The Emer Gallery (label verso); The Taylor Gallery, Belfast; Private Collection, Northern Ireland.

€3000 - 5000 49

36 Donald Teskey, RHA, b.1956 COASTLINE NARRATIVE III Oil on canvas, 71" x 90½" (180 x 230cm), signed; signed, inscribed & dated 2006 verso.

Provenance: The Rubicon Gallery, Dublin (label verso); Private Collection, Dublin.

One of the more extraordinary achievements of Donald Teskey’s paintings is that, for all the uproar, the booming din that is part and parcel of their topics, their effect on us is one of calm. If we were to think of them as freeze-frames of a film, it would be one without sound, or with the sound turned down. I believe Donald Teskey’s finest works so far are his large-scale acts of attention to the ferocious clash of land and ocean, a series of masterpieces – yes, masterpieces – he extends in Coastline Narratives. Exact and evocative, these paintings enact every detail of the drama of the waves’ assault on the shore’s abrupt edge and, by pitting such elemental powers against each other, they conjure that conundrum of physics – the unstoppable force and the immovable object. And yet they display no over-awed, dispassionate detachment. Donald Teskey has spoken about his art as ‘chasing the light’, he follows it into the nooks and crannies of the rocks, tracing the fault lines and defects which reveal their ultimate character. The precise whereabouts of Teskey’s tidal and coastline narratives are declared only through the paintings’ titles or through the artist’s specific report. We couldn’t ever say we recognize or could pinpoint their map position. That’s not what’s important. Teskey’s signature pieces are distinguished, first, by the expert confidence of their composition. Many of these Coastline Narratives are etched in a way that we might see a score and hear its notes. They are underpinned by grids and graphs the paints will fill, layer on layer, as they’re scratched and scraped into being. Others are inscribed with lines that direct our eyes and instruct us like ogam (modern Irish, ógham prounounced óm), that ancient system of markings cut into stone, which served as memorials and territorial boundaries. Land’s ends, you might say. Secondly, they are remarkable for the economy and efficiency of their coloration, the artist’s variation on themes within a narrow spectrum, the delicate balance of whites, greys and light blues offset only by the occasional stain of minerals deep in the monoliths or by earth tones of a distant backdrop. The colour range contributes to his works’ sense of lull or interlude. His is an assuaging art. His paintings have what Ted Hughes called ‘the authentic fingerprint of experience’. They begin in a place, in the world, in fact – and end in glorious art. And yet for all the quietness I’ve emphasised, the silent opera of what Donald Teskey has already accomplished, there is in his work a hushed insistence. Ref: Extracts taken from the publication ‘Coastline Narratives’, 17 Oct 2006, by Peter Fallon, written in 2006. Peter Fallon is editor and publisher of The Gallery Press.

€30000 - 50000

37 Donald Teskey, RHA, b.1956 BENWEE HEAD II Oil on canvas, 24" x 30" (61 x 76.2cm), signed; signed, inscribed & dated 2001 verso.

â&#x201A;¬14000 - 18000

38 Hughie O’Donoghue, RA, b.1953 FIELD OF THE EYES III Oil on canvas, 49½" x 72" (125.7 x 183.9cm), signed & dated 2003/4 verso. Provenance: Purchased from Purdy Hicks, London, 2004 by the present owner; Private Collection, Dublin. In 2001 Hughie O’Donoghue introduced us to the local names of particular landmarks surrounding his mother’s home in Northwest County Mayo. Naming the Fields, an exhibition at the Rubicon Gallery took us to such wonders as Tawnanasool (Field of the Eyes) and Knocknalower (Field of the Lepers). Adopting the same title, this Field of the Eyes painting references earlier periods of work by O’Donoghue. The floating body with knees bent recalls imagery of figures not so much fallen as felled on the dirty battlefields of Italy in 1944. O’Donoghue’s father, Daniel was a navigator in the British Expeditionary Force and witnessed the disintegration of Mussolini’s regime on the front line, red in tooth and claw. Much of O’Donoghue’s work seeks to remember, reflect and interpret his father’s experiences. Oliver Sears, November 2020

€20000 - 30000

39 John Boyd, b.1957 MEN WITH MASK Oil on board, 20" x 28" (50.8 x 71.1cm), signed & inscribed John Boyd/025 and verso.

“Artists should keep their eyes open and their mouths shut”, John Boyd

Born in Carlisle, Boyd studied at the Slade School in London and at the University of Newcastle.

A playful artist, he enjoys creating compositions with obscure and often confusing narratives. By juxtaposing real and hidden faces, as with Victorian picture puzzles, he teases the viewer with multiple possible interpretations, the key often residing in the carefully worded title, itself an opportunity to both wittily engage with the viewer but also to add to the mystery surrounding each composition. Interpretation and misinterpretation of each paintings narrative is in many respects the objective which seems to define much of Boyds output and one senses from each painting that he takes enormous delight in his attempts to outwit the viewer. Boyd has lived in Ireland for many years and his work can be found in the collections of Allied Irish Bank and The Merrion Hotel amongst others.

€7000 - 10000

40 John Boyd, b.1957 AS I WAS COMING DOWN THE STAIR... IGNOTUM PER IGNOTIUS (FOR AGILULF GURDULOU) Oil on panel, 31½" x 23½" (80 x 59.7cm), signed & inscribed on a strip of paper affixed to the reverse. Provenance: Collection of Eric Levine, Esq. 1994.

Exhibited: Christopher Hull Gallery, London, 1994.

€7000 - 10000

41 Callum Innes, b.1962 EXPOSED PAINTING Oil on linen, 34½" x 32½" (87.5 x 82.5cm), signed verso.

Provenance: Frith Street Gallery, London; Private Collection, Northern Ireland.

Literature: Callum Innes, ‘From Memory’ (illus p.173).

Callum Innes’ Exposed Paintings are at the core of his artistic enterprise and they are also the most elegantly succinct statement of his method. That method crucially involves subtraction as much, and perhaps more conspicuously than, addition. Left to its own devices, one of Innes’s pre-exposed paintings would consist of a single block of colour but, having created this colour field, the artist sets about selectively dissolving half of it with washes of turpentine. It is a tricky process, he has admitted, and it runs the risk of going wrong. In fact, a notably self-critical painter, he is known to abandon more paintings than he keeps. One important aspect of the method is that it doesn’t just do away completely with an area of paint. Rather it is as if it unlocks the colour. Innes has observed that he does not know what he is going to encounter as the colour comes apart, and is often surprised at the tonal complexities that unfold. His aim is not to get rid of part of the paint he’s applied but to point up the absence of what was there. Born in Edinburgh, he studied in Aberdeen and then back in Edinburgh. He was at that stage making figurative paintings but was dissatisfied with them. When he was offered a residency in Amsterdam he saw it as a chance to reconsider his approach. His time in Amsterdam provided exactly that, leading to a breakthrough. How do you convey a presence in painting without being drawn into making a conventional image? That was implicitly the question he seemed to ask himself. The physical substance of the paint itself seemed like a promising way of doing so. One potential recourse was to emphasise the physicality of pigment, perhaps by using it in thick masses. Several fine artists have followed that line of thought, but Innes chose to take an almost opposite direction. He conveyed presence by drawing our attention to absence, to what we figure out had been there, but was dissolved and dispersed. The glittering residue of dismantled colour is a quiet reminder, an echo. As a pictorial strategy, it is extremely effective. Innes’s paintings have a subtle but persuasive power, and he has produced a body of work that ranks with that of such major figures as Rothko, earning great acclaim along the way.

Aidan Dunne, November, 2020 €12000 - 16000

42 Sean Scully, RA, b.1945 UNTITLED 3-7-86 Pastel on paper, 29¾" x 41¾" (75.6 x 106cm), signed & dated 3-7-86.

Provenance: David McKee Gallery, New York (label verso).

Scully, who is internationally renowned, has always embraced a very restricted visual language: stripes. However, it is astonishing how within these strict boundaries he continues to surprise us, reinventing the grid over and over again. In the 1970s Scully made an impact with very meticulously precise paintings which owed a lot to the slick, impersonal surfaces of Minimalism. However, in the 1980s there was a stark change, with Scully introducing more ‘physicality’. The brushwork loosened up, the edges of stripes became rougher and there was definitely more sense of the artist’s presence. One could see evidence of his hand at work. As a colourist, Scully becomes more subtle in the ’80s. Here we see orangey under-tones deliberately and irregularly showing through the top layer. These orange tones animate the surface, breathing life into it. He also organises shapes to further animate a picture. Here we encounter visual tension with the black and brown rectangle that wants to come forward and sit up on the surface while simultaneously remaining locked into the vertical slab behind it. Scully also cleverly dropped the height of the right-hand grey stripe, creating ‘dialogue’ or visual tension between the small horizontal white space above the short slab and that black/brown rectangle diagonally across from it. Untitled shows how the structure of his pictures became simpler and bolder, using black to give a ‘punch’ to the space. The colour is dragged over each component, giving it an appealing tactile quality, a roughness that’s become an important part of Scully’s evolving style. This vertical dragging reinforces the linear rhythm of the composition in a subtle way while also reminding is of the physical act involved in making the marks. Rhythmic is a word that’s often used to describe this artist’s work. In an interview with H. M. Herzog Scully talked about the “relentless taut musical quality”: “When you have those lines, they’re almost like guitar strings – in space they are vibrative.” Dr Frances Ruane HRHA

€80000 - 120000

43 Mark Francis, b.1962 SYNCRONICITY Oil on canvas, 66" x 44" (167.6 x 111.7cm) signed, inscribed & dated 2008 verso. Provenance: The Kerlin Gallery, Dublin (label verso); Christies 2010, lot 71 (label verso); Private Collection. The paintings of Mark Francis describe an alien world, which is all the more startling because it is very much the world we inhabit. At first glance most of his paintings might be abstract compositions but even taken on that level, they are not cool, minimalist abstracts, more often than not they have an ominous quality, as though they harbour some dark secret, which, in a way, they do. Francis is drawn to the world beyond conventional visibility, as he has been since the late-1980s, perhaps largely due to his interest in mycology, the study of fungi. The immensity and complexity of fungal networks, recently highlighted in Merlin Sheldrake’s book Entangled Life, clearly had an enormous impact on the artist, leading him to make paintings based on microscopic images of fungal spores. These tiny particles are fungi’s asexual reproductive particles, a system also found in bacteria and algae. They led on to Francis’s exploration of other aspects of reproductive processes, including human. Underlying these agglomerations of tiny organic particles is the enveloping matrix, whether the larger organic structure or, as in the case of many fungi, vast underground networks. Francis visualises this wider matrix in terms of the grid. Conceptually, the grid in his work may signify any manifestation of networked structure, whether naturally, haphazardly occurring or calculated, as in a communications network, for example. He has also progressively expanded his interest to incorporate the macroscopic as well as the microscopic, drawing on spectrographic analysis or the data feeds of radio telescopes as methods of visualising the remote depths of space. In every case he makes images of the world, but not the world as we normally see it. Synchronicity originally appeared in his exceptionally strong exhibition Field in the Kerlin Gallery in 2009, a show that consolidated the role of the grid, literally and metaphorically, in his work. Born in Newtownards, Francis studied in London and has been based there since. His work featured in Sensation, the controversial 1997 exhibition at the Royal Academy London drawn from the Saatchi collection. He has exhibited widely internationally and his work is included in numerous collections. Aidan Dunne, November 2020

€15000 - 25000

44 Hughie O’Donoghue, RA, b.1953 SANGRO (2006) Oil on canvas 50" x 72" (127 x 183cm), signed, inscribed & dated 2006 verso. Sangro is the name of a river in the Abruzzo region of central Italy, one of five rivers in Italy that the allies had to navigate as they pushed north. O’Donoghue’s father, Daniel was a navigator in the British Expeditionary Force and witnessed carnage during this campaign, first hand. The Rapido, another of these rivers, appears in a number of titles of O’Donoghue’s paintings of this period. The awkward pose of the figure indicates a sudden end-quiet, lifeless but not dignified. The background blur of black and red represents the fog of war, the same colouration tingeing the limbs of the figure, as though infecting this soul with the uniform condition of conflict. Few artists can communicate the intensity and gravity of war with such beauty. Compassion and intimacy without an ounce of sentimentality. These war compositions are utterly compelling.

Oliver Sears, November 2020 €20000 - 30000

45 John Noel Smith, b.1952 THE FOLD PANDEET (triptych) Oil on canvas, 35½" x 70¾" (90.1 x 179.7cm), signed; inscribed & dated 2010 verso; artist no.104.

€3000 - 5000

46 Liam Belton, RHA, b.1947 CONGO GONG WITH PLASTER BOWLS Oil on canvas, 19¾" x 30" (50 x 76cm), signed; signed, inscribed & dated 2014 verso.

€6000 - 9000

47 Liam Belton, RHA, b.1947 SENUFO HEDDLE PULLEY WITH EGG DRAWING Oil on canvas, 19¾" x 30" (50 x 76cm), signed; signed & inscribed verso.

€6000 - 9000

48 Mary Theresa Keown, b.1974 1.44 PM Oil on canvas, 39½" x 47¼" (100.4 x 120cm), signed; signed, inscribed & dated 2003 verso.

Provenance: Solomon Fine Art Gallery, Dublin (label verso).

€1000 - 1500

49 John Noel Smith, b.1952 UNITED FIELD PAINTING Oil on canvas, 27¾" x 15¾" (70.5 x 40cm), signed, inscribed & dated 2007. Artist No. 075.

50 Ciaran Lennon, b.1947 UNTITLED Oil on marble panel laid on wood, 24½" x 12¾" (62.2 x 32.1cm), signed & dated 2003 verso, artist stamp verso.

€1000 - 1500

€1500 - 2000

51 Patrick Scott, HRHA, 1921-2014 GOLD PAINTING 38 (1966) Gold leaf and tempera on unprimed canvas, six panels, each 48" x 48" (122 x 122cm), overall 246 x 366cm, one signed & dated. Exhibited: Hamilton Galleries, London, 1966; ‘Patrick Scott’ (retrospective exhibition); The Douglas Hyde Gallery Dublin; Ulster Museum Belfast; Crawford Municipal Gallery Cork, 1981; ‘Patrick Scott Fifty Years’, Penn Castle, Cork, 1994; ‘Patrick Scott, Image Space, Light’ IMMA Dublin; Cultural Centre Letterkenny/ Glebe Gallery Donegal 2014 (reproduced colour p.66-7).

Literature: Reproduced in ‘Patrick Scott’ by Aidan Dunne, p.120.

Provenance: Private Collection, acquired directly from the artists family and by descent. Patrick Scott is exceptional in Irish cultural history for the range and quality of his work across the fields of art and design for well over half a century. The artist Brian O’Doherty (aka Patrick Ireland) said that he had produced “the most consistently excellent body of work of any Irish artist.” In 1960, having being chosen to represent Ireland at the Venice Biennale and won an award at the prestigious Guggenheim International Exhibition, Patrick Scott felt confident enough to give up his day job with Michael Scott’s architectural practice. Even before he’d qualified as an architect, he had wanted to be a painter and, throughout his years with the firm, he managed to cram in parallel lives as a painter and a designer. In fact, his involvement as a designer with Scott Tallon Walker, as it became, continued throughout his life. By the early 1960s, he was making strides towards his mature painting style. Working with tempera on oatmealcoloured, raw linen canvas, he produced a series of Device paintings, dominated by a coloured disc motif. The devices in question were nuclear bombs detonated in tests, but then he turned to the sun, as a more benign, radiant disc, acknowledging the influence of the Japanese flag on his art. Then during 1964, he instituted some lasting initiatives in his work. He began to use gold leaf, often in combination with tempera wash. Gold leaf comes in squares. The circle and the square are Scott’s two quintessential formats and forms. The gold leaf squares can be cut to fit a circular form; used whole, repeatedly, they encourage straight, right-angled or diagonal arrangements and throughout the mid-1960s Scott experimented fruitfully with these possibilities. Gold Painting 38 is an outstanding example of a series of ambitious works he made, as he was testing the limits of this visual language. The key, he said in 1972, was always to simplify. It was a Zen-like principle he applied brilliantly to every problem he encountered in art, architecture and design throughout his career. The six square panels of No 38 form a composite arrangement of a single, simple composition based on geometric subdivisions of a square. The core composition consists of a band of white tempera wash and two bands of gold leaf that diverge diagonally. He effects two simple rotations that don’t disrupt an overall symmetry, but create a subtle spatial dynamic. Aidan Dunne, November 2020

€60000 - 90000

52 Richard Healy, Contemporary ALLIUM Red Aberdeen Granite on White Portuguese Limestone, 44.5cm high including base.

â&#x201A;Ź 1200 - 1800

53 Patrick O’Reilly, b.1957 DETERMINATION Bronze, 19cm high x 33cm wide, signed, unique.

€ 1500 - 2500

54 Evie Hone HRHA, 1895-1955 ABSTRACT COMPOSITION Gouache, 17" x 12" (43 x 30.5cm) Provenance: Ex Collection Robert & Cherith McKinstry.

€2000 - 3000

55 Patrick O’Reilly, b.1957 BEAR WITH CUB Bronze and gold leaf, 16" high x 22" wide (40.6 x 55.8cm), signed and dated 2017, unique.

€4000 - 6000

56 Harry Kernoff, RHA, 1900-1974 LARKFIELD HOUSE, KIMMAGE (1926) Oil on board, 12" x 16" (30.5 x 40.6cm), signed; signed & inscribed verso.

â&#x201A;¬4000 - 6000

57 Paul Henry, RHA, 1876-1958 TURF STACKS, POOL AND MOUNTAINS, CO. KERRY (c.1933) Oil on canvas, 16¼" x 19" (41.2 x 48.2cm), signed. Literature: Paul Henry: Paintings, Drawings and Illustrations by S.B. Kennedy, cat no.768, (p. 253). Provenance: S. Shane, Belfast; Molly Lawrence, Belfast; her sale, Ross’s, Belfast, 6 February 2002, lot 209; Private Collection, Northern Ireland. In Dr. Brian Kennedy’s ongoing catalogue he identifies this view as towards the MacGillycuddy Reeks, Co Kerry and most probably near Glencar, south east of Glenbeigh. Henry first stayed here in the summer of 1933 and the contentment he felt at that time in his life is reflected through this beautifully still landscape.

€60000 - 90000

58 Jack B.Yeats, RHA, 1871-1957 THE GAIETY THEATRE, DUBLIN (ROMEO & JULIET – THE LAST ACT) (1927) Oil on canvas, 18" x 24" (51 x 76cm), signed, inscribed (twice) verso. Exhibited: 1927 Dublin (23); 1927 Birmingham (31); 1928 London (34); 1969 Montreal (7); 1971 London (7) (col. repro); 1971-2 Dublin New York (62) (col. repro). Provenance: Mrs Roger Frankland; purchased at Sotheby’s (London) 14 July 1965 by Waddington Galleries, London; Private Collection, USA; John Rous, 4th Earl of Stradbroke, thence by descent; Bonhams, 1/7/20 (no.12); Catalogue note by Dr Roisin Kennedy below. Literature: Hilary Pyle, ‘Jack B. Yeats, A Catalogue Raisonne of the Oil Paintings, Vol II’, No 335, p.322, (1992, London). According to Hilary Pyle, the artwork was originally “sketched by the artist in Sketchbook 215 [139]. The shadowed stage is predominantly blue, with the detail drawn in a darker blue, and other colours, describing the tomb, the candles and the prostrate figures in the centre of the stage. The dark heads of the audience are seen below, and in the stage boxes, against the dark gold frame of the stage.” As Pyle states, Yeats painted stage scenes throughout his career in both watercolour and oil. With this depiction of Romeo and Juliet, Yeats “achieves an atmosphere of romantic fantasy” through vertical, pale blue brushstrokes which “lend to the stillness of the tableau”. Charles Guonod’s opera Romeo and Juliet was performed in the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin on 2 March 1926. Yeats was in attendance at the Gaiety and outlined the scene depicted in the painting in his sketchbook. He was an avid theatre goer and playwright and wrote several plays for children in the early 1900s. His later experimental plays Harlequin’s Positions, La La Noo and In Sand were staged at the Abbey Theatre between 1939 and 1949. Several of Yeats’s paintings are inspired by his experiences of the theatre. These include Singing The Minstrel Boy (1923, The Model, Sligo), Now (1941, Private Collection), The Talent (1944, Private Collection) and Man Hearing an Old Song, (1950, Private Collection). These paintings like, Romeo and Juliet, incorporate the audience and its involvement in the performance. Yeats’s cursory sketch notes the two candles, the balcony to the right and the prominent form of the conductor which are all key elements in the final painting. The figure of the conductor can be seen in the painting on the extreme left. His head is erect and his arms extended as he conducts the concluding notes of Guonod’s score. The stage is framed by the warm reds and yellows of the surrounding auditorium. The heads of the front row of the audience fill the bottom of the composition. On the right hand side the towering structure of the interior of the Gaiety throws the perspective of the stage into stark relief. The elaborate gilt and maroon decoration is richly conveyed by loose swirls of deep colour which take on an organic quality, suggestive of movement and warm reflected light. A spectator is shown seated in the darkened theatre box looking at the performance. The ledge of this box, which stands out in sharp relief, is modelled out of thick brown paint while black lines indicate the railings. This unusual perspective emphasises the collaborative nature of live theatre in which the performers, musicians, and the spectators share in the illusion of the drama. It also draws attention to the artificiality of the set and the theatre itself as an extraordinary site where the human imagination is enabled to take flight.

Dr Roisin Kennedy €100000 - 150000

59 Norah McGuinness, HRHA, 1901-1980 VIEW OF THE THAMES FROM MY STUDIO WINDOW Oil on canvas, 18'' x 24'' (46 x 61cm), signed.

Provenance: The Frederick Gallery, Dublin (label verso); Private Collection, Dublin.

â&#x201A;¬7000 - 10000

60 Evie Hone, HRHA, 1894-1955 IN THE WOODS AT MARLAY Gouache, 15¾" x 13¼" (40 x 33.6cm), signed. Provenance: The Dawson Gallery, Dublin (label verso).

€1500 - 2500

61 Anne King-Harman, 1919-1979 CHRISTMAS ROSES Oil on board, 10" x 14" (25.5 x 35.6cm), signed with initials, inscribed artists label verso.

€1000 - 2000

62 Roderic O’Conor, 1860-1940 SEATED NUDE Oil on canvas, 25½" x 21½" (64.7 x 54.6cm), stamped verso ‘atelier/ O'Conor’. Provenance: Hotel Drouot, Paris, Vente O’Conor, 7 February 1956; M. and Mme. Lemasse, Paris; Mr J.H. Riley; Sotheby’s, London, 2 May 1990, no. 25; from 1994, private collection, London. Literature: Jonathan Benington, ‘Roderic O’Conor: a Biography with a Catalogue of his Work’, Dublin 1992, p.217, no.230. During the First World War, O’Conor’s paintings were generally characterised by a return to a more academic and carefully delineated style, but in the decade following its final years his work underwent change towards a more heightened and expressive realism. This was conveyed by strong earthen colours, the portrayal of his models in life studies in more relaxed poses, the skilful use of impasto, light and shade to convey beauty of form, and by expending the utmost care in the placing of figures, objects and backgrounds to achieve balanced and harmonious compositions.

Seated Nude, which appears likely to have been painted by O’Conor around 1921-22, well exemplifies his painterly techniques of that period. A young woman is portrayed in peaceful repose, with her head cradled for comfort upon her encircled arms, which in turn rest upon a blue grey drape. Drawn studies by O’Conor (see right) show that he explored upright seated poses with the right arm supported horizontally on the back of a chair. In Seated Nude, however, the exchange of the right arm for the left and the use of both arms as a pillow yields a more convincing impression of serene repose.

These refinements have also allowed for a more rhythmic design relying on an interplay of carefully placed contours. The strong verticals of the chair legs and wall are balanced against a series of sweeping curves, the most prominent of which are those described by the right-hand edge of the drape, and the model’s thighs and lower legs. With the right-facing flank of the nude illuminated most strongly, the young woman’s head is turned the other way, and its left side thereby cast in shadow. Whereas many O’Conor figure studies depict legs and lower body cropped, here O’Conor depicts the model’s full figure, right down to the slippers she is wearing, no doubt because the floor was cold. Seated nude would have been painted quite spontaneously, probably in a single sitting. The fact that O’Conor retained the work in his studio for the rest of his life suggests that he had brought it to a stage, as a study from life, that gave him full satisfaction.

We are grateful to Jonathan Benington for his assistance in preparing this catalogue entry. €30000 - 50000

63 Nathaniel Hone, RHA, 1831-1917 THE INTRINSIC ROCKS, KILKEE, CO CLARE Oil on board, 7" x 10" (17.8 x 25.2cm).

Provenance: The Dawson Gallery, Dublin (label verso).

Literature: Thomas Bodkin ‘Four Irish Landscape Painters’ (No. 512).

€2000 - 4000

64 Erskine Nicol RSA, ARA, 1825-1904 CROFTERS, FIRESIDE Oil on panel, 9" x 13" (22.8 x 33cm), signed & dated 1859. Provenance: The National Gallery of Rhodesia (label vesro); Major Hilton and by descent to previous owner; Private Collection South Africa; Private Collection, Dublin. Scottish born, Nicol taught in Dublin from 1845-1850. This was at the height of the famine and Nicol identified with the plight of the Irish people and a lot of his work portrays the very poor conditions that prevailed. Nicol exhibited extensively at the R.H.A and the Royal Academy.

â&#x201A;Ź2000 - 4000

65 William Percy French, 1854-1920 BOG LANDSCAPE Watercolour, 6¾" x 9¾" (17.1 x 24.7cm), signed with initials.

€1500 - 2500

66 William Percy French, 1854-1920 GORTNAMONA Watercolour and pen, 5" x 7", (12 x 17.8cm), with artist inscribed poem verso.

67 William Percy French, 1854-1920 BOG LANDSCAPE WITH TURF STACKS Watercolour and pen, 5" x 7" (12.6 x 17.8cm), with artist inscribed poem verso.

€1500 - 2500

68 Maurice Canning Wilks, RUA, ARHA 1910-1984 ST. JOHN’S POINT – CO. DOWN Oil on canvas, 20¼" x 25" (51.3 x 63.5cm), signed; inscribed verso.

Provenance: Private Collection, Northern Ireland.

€2000 - 3000

69 Maurice Canning Wilks, RUA, ARHA, 1910-1984 ANTRIM COAST NEAR BALLINTOY Oil on canvas, 18" x 24" (45.6 x 61cm), signed; inscribed verso.

70 Maurice Canning Wilks, RUA, ARHA, 1910-1984 ON THE WEST COAST OF DONEGAL Oil on canvas, 18" x 24" (45.6 x 61cm), signed; inscribed verso.

Provenance: Private Collection, Northern Ireland.

€2000 - 3000

71 Jack Butler Yeats, RHA, 1871-1957 THE LITTLE MERCHANT (1925) (GORT, CO GALWAY) Oil on board, 9" x 14" (22.8 x 35.6cm), signed. Provenance: Acquired directly from the artist by John J. Horgan, Cork, in 1941, and by descent; with Pyms Gallery, London, where purchased by Jimmy Benson, OBE, on 30 September 1987 (label verso); Christies, 22nd Jan 2020, lot 140. Exhibited: 1925 Dublin (3); 1926 London (21); 1927 Birmingham (19); 1945 Dublin National Loan (51); 1987 London (46) (col. repro). Literature: ‘Jack B. Yeats, A Catalogue Raisonne of the Oil Paintings’ by Hilary Pyle, No 292. According to Hilary Pyle, this painting depicts a scene in Gort, Co. Galway that the artist witnessed. A young girl is being congratulated on her selling skills by two elderly women.[i] The former is seated on a box with a small table of apples laid out in front of her. She is dressed in a black woolen shawl and long blue dress and appears very much as an adult. The women, by comparison, seem tall, elongated, and slender, their bodies covered by thick shawls. Behind them, a deserted townscape extends with two shop fronts visible across the street. The painted signage and large display windows are in sharp contrast to the simple stall of the apple seller. To the right the view opens onto a wide intersecting street on which a man and a donkey make their way, indicative of the beginning of early morning activity. The paint is broadly handled, with the figures denoted by fluid strokes that generalise their features. The cool morning air is conveyed through the dominant use of blue tones on the architecture in the streetscape to the right, while tinges of warm yellow suggest sunlight falling on the ground behind the women. Bright red tones enhance the colour range, connecting the red skirt of one of the women, with the apple table and the painted cart frame to the right. Yeats painted several scenes of flower girls and fruit sellers in the 1920s. Many are based on sketches that he made on his walks around Dublin and his travels around the Irish countryside. These works, like this one, reveal his empathy towards these people, often women, who made a precarious living on the streets. The lone figure of the little merchant, the object of curiosity, conveys the isolation of her work. She may be selling the produce of her own household. In the 1920s apples were not imported as today and their limited season ran from late August to December, when they were considered a treat for children and adults alike. The fact that the girl has secured her stall so early in the day suggests her determination and need to make money. Dr Roisin Kennedy

€60000 - 90000

[i] Hilary Pyle, Jack B. Yeats: a catalogue raisonné of his oil paintings, (London: Deutsch, 1992), I, p. 265.

72 Sir William Orpen, RA RI RHA, 1878-1931 PORTRAIT OF CLARA HUGHES Oil on canvas, 24" x 20¼" (61 x51.4cm), signed & dated 1902. Provenance: Commissioned by Sam Hughes, the sitter’s father and thence by descent to the previous owner; sold Bonhams, 30 November 2004 (lot 12); Private Collection, Northern Ireland. Literature: Bruce Arnold, Orpen: Mirror to an Age, Jonathan Cape Ltd., London, 1981, p.106-110 (ill.col.opp.p.161). Exhibited: On loan to Manchester City Art Galleries. This painting was one of Orpen’s earliest commissioned portraits and its award was probably partly due to the success of his exhibits in the New English Art Club winter show of 1900-01, which included ‘The Mirror’ now in Tate Britain, London. Dating from the period when Orpen was moving towards the establishment of his reputation and away from the exuberant lifestyle of his immediate post-Slade years, we are fortunate that the artist described the trials and tribulations of this commission in his letters to Grace from Manchester, helping us to see Orpen striving not just for likeness but also the humanity which is such a feature of his portrait style. The commission came from Sam Hughes, a Manchester businessman and proprietor of the bookshop, Sheratt and Hughes. Hughes was certainly a great friend of Hugh Lane and it is suggested by Bruce Arnold that it may be by this route that Orpen obtained the commission (ibid.p.109, note 1). The sittings were not without problems, in part deriving from the youth of his subject and her unwillingness to stay still. This evidently frustrated Orpen and we see in his letters how his hopes rise and fall with each sitting. It may be however that the difficulties were not all one-sided as in a letter written to Bruce Arnold in 1977, the sitter recalls that she was very frightened of Orpen. Arnold illustrates one of the sheets sent to Grace which includes a preliminary sketch of the portrait (ibid.p.108). Despite the artist’s apparent self-doubt, it is possible to see here in the dexterous handling of the interior and the natural charm of the sitter both Orpen’s success in a format that was still a little new to him and a foresight of his portrait of children from later in the decade.

€10000 - 15000

73 William John Leech, RHA, 1881-1968 TREES IN A GARDEN Watercolour, 13" x 9" (33 x 22.7cm), signed. Exhibited: William John Leech: An Irish Painter Abroad at the National Gallery of Ireland, 22 October - 15 December 1996, Cat. No. 53.

€2000 - 3000

74 William Conor, RHA, RUA, ROI, 1881-1968 FRUIT STALL Crayon, 10¾" x 14½" (27.3 x 36.8cm), signed.

€2000 - 3000

75 Dermod O’Brien, PRHA, 1865-1945 HAYSTACKS Oil on canvas, 15" x 18" (38.1 x 45.7cm), signed.

€2000 - 4000

76 George Russell, AE, 1867-1935 FIGURES ON A COUNTRY ROAD Oil on canvas, 16" x 21" (41 x 53.5cm), signed with monogram.

€1500 - 2500 91

77 Arthur Armstrong, RHA, 1924-1996 TWIN BEACHES Oil on board, 24" x 30" (61 x 76.2 cm), signed; inscribed verso.

â&#x201A;¬1500 - 2500

Basil Blackshaw, HRHA, HRUA, 1932-2016 STILL LIFE OF FLOWERS Oil on paper, 13¾" x 9¾" (34.8 x 24.7), signed. €1500 - 2500

79 Markey Robinson, 1818-1999 GABLE ENDS Gouache, 7" x 14" (17.8 x 35.6cm), signed.

€1000 - 1500 93

80 Tom Carr HRHA, HRUA, ARWS 1909-1999 PORTRAIT OF TERENCE FLANAGAN Oil on canvas laid on board, 12½" x 8¼" (31.6 x 20.9cm), signed.

€1400 - 1800

81 Robert Ballagh, b.1943 PORTRAIT OF A FIGURE Oil on board, 12¼" x 16" (31.1 x 40.6cm), signed. Provenance: The Emer Gallery (label verso).

€1500 - 2000

82 Daniel O’Neill, 1920-1974 THE BENCH Oil on board, 20" x 24" (50.7 x 61cm), signed.

Literature: The Irish Figurists, Susan Stairs (illustrated p.149).

€25000 - 35000

83 Roderic O’Conor, 1860-1940 NUDE Charcoal, 13" x 10" (33 x 25.4cm). Provenance: Collection of Rene Honta O’Conor bequeathed to Mme. Henri Bellard; from whom acquired by Dr. Robelet, Brittany. Sold at Thierry-Lannon auction house, Brest, 13 May 2007, lot 80. The will of Roderic O’Conor’s wife, Renee Honta, assigned all the furniture to their former housekeeper, Mme. Henri Bellard. This included a chest full of letters, etchings and drawings. A large portion of the latter was sold to a local resident, Dr. Robelet. (Ref. extract from Dickon Hall – catalogue note by Jonathan Benington)

€1000 - 1500

84 Roderic O’Conor, 1860-1940 SEATED FIGURE II Charcoal, 12" x 9" (30.5 x 22.8cm). Provenance: Collection of Rene Honta O’Conor bequeathed to Mme. Bellard; from whom acquired by Dr. Robelet, Brittany. Sold at Thierry-Lannon auction house, Brest, 13 May 2007, lot 76. Drawings of nudes constituted a vast majority of the Robelet Collection. These were executed in O’Conor’s Montparnasse studio, 102 rue du Cherche-midi. The range of poses, angles and physical characteristics were drawn were purely for his own satisfaction, not for public viewing, hence why they were very rarely signed or dated. (Ref. extract from Dickon Hall – catalogue note by Jonathan Benington) 96

€1000 - 1500

85 Jack B. Yeats, RHA, 1871-1957 FROM MY BEDROOM WINDOW Pen, 5¼" x 8¾" (13.3 x 22.2cm), signed, inscribed & dated 1906.

€800 -1200

86 John B. Yeats, RHA, 1839-1922 PORTRAIT OF A LADY Charcoal, 9¾" x 6¾" (24.6 x 17.2cm).

€700 - 1000

87 Renee Honta, 1894-1950 STILL LIFE Oil on canvas, 25½" x 21¼" (65 x 54cm), inscribed verso. Renee Honta was a model for Roderic O’Conor and they married late in O’Conor’s life. He taught her to paint and her work is similar in style.

€1000 - 2000

88 Paddy McCann, B.1963 SEEKING SHELTER Oil on canvas, 8¾" x 6¼" (22.3 x 15.7cm), signed, inscribed & dated 2004 verso, artist stamp verso.

€400 - 600

89 Paddy McCann, b.1963 BOTH OUTSIDE Oil on canvas, 10¾" x 8½" (27.3 x 21.6cm), signed, inscribed & dated 2007 verso.

€400 - 600

90 Ciaran Lennon, b.1947 UNTITLED Acrylic on perspex, 19" x 15" (48.3 x 38.1cm), signed & dated 2006 verso.

â&#x201A;¬2000 - 3000

100

91 Ciaran Lennon, b.1947 UNTITLED Acrylic sheet on copper, 14" x 11¼" (35.6 x 28.6cm), signed & dated 2005 verso, artist stamp verso, artist label verso.

92 Ciaran Lennon, b.1947 SINGLE ARBITARY COLOUR Acrylic on copper laid on wood, 13" x 8¾" (33 x 22.3cm), signed, inscribed & dated 2004 verso.

€1500 - 2500

101

€1400 - 1800

93 Ciaran Lennon, b.1947 UNTITLED Acrylic on mesh on copper, 13½" x 11¼" (34.3 x 28.5cm), artist stamp verso.

94 Ciaran Lennon, b.1947 UNTITLED Acrylic on steel, 10½" x 9" (26.6 x 22.8).

€1500 - 2500

102

€1000 - 1500

95 Charles Brady, HRHA 1926-1997 ENVELOPE Oil on canvas, 19¾" x 31½" (50.3 x 80cm), signed.

€3000 - 5000

96 Edward Delaney, 1930-2009 PROJECT NO. 25 Oil on board, 19½" x 29¼" (49.5 x 74.3cm).

Provenance: The David Hendricks Gallery (label verso).

€600 - 900 103

97 Barbara Warren, RHA, 1925-2017 DRESSER Oil on canvas, 22" x 18" (55.8 x 45.7cm), signed.

Provenance: Sold at these rooms: Lot 107, June 10, 2014.

€1400 - 1800

98 Peter Collis, HRHA, 1929-2012 A WICKLOW ROAD, WINTER 1990 Oil on board, 11" x 14" (27.9 x 35.6cm), signed; artist label verso. €700 - 1000

104

99 Michael Cullen, RHA, 1946-2020 ENTRANCE Mixed media, 25" x 36" (63.5 x 91.4cm), signed & dated ’01.

€1200 - 1800

105

100 Liam O’Neill, b.1954 COLLECTING HAY Oil on canvas, 30" x 40" (76.2cm x 100.7cm), signed. Born on the Dingle Peninsula in Co Kerry, Liam O’Neill draws on the local people and their everyday surroundings. His paintings reflect many aspects of life in West Kerry, especially the ones that are fast-fading from living memory, the old ways of farming, from herding sheep and cows, to saving hay and cutting turf. “I paint that which makes this area unique, the special views: Brandon, The Blaskets, and The Three Sisters, they are the backbone of the place from which it takes its structure. They are powerful symbols. Then there are the fields, the walls, the people and the animals. “ In my paintings I want to celebrate that way of life. I want to salute a generation of ordinary people who have become heroes in my memory. Living in the locality once more has sharpened my understanding of life in my father’s time. In a way, I am trying to do with paint what Tomás Ó Croithin did with words. I want to salute a special generation because ‘ní bheidh a leithéidí arís ann’.” Liam O’Neill has exhibited widely over the past thirty years including Dingle, Dublin, London, Paris, New York and San Francisco. €10000 - 15000

106

101 Liam O’Neill, b.1954 PORTRAIT OF MICHAEL COLLINS Oil on canvas, 40" x 30" (101.6cm x 76.1cm), signed. €10000 - 15000

107

102 Neil Shawcross, RHA, RUA, b.1940 SEA AND SARDINIA Oil and charcoal on paper, 60" x 40½" (152.3 x 102.7cm), signed & dated 2010. €3000 - 5000

108

103 Neil Shawcross, RHA, RUA, b.1940 UNTITLED Oil on paper, 60" x 40" (152.4 x 101.6) signed & dated 2005. â&#x201A;¬2500 - 3500

109

104 William Scott, CBE RA, 1913-1989 STILL LIFE, PEARS Lithograph, 8½" x 10¼" (20.6 x 27.3cm), signed & dated ’74, edition 23 of 75. €1400 - 1800

105 Veronica Bolay, RHA, b.1941 SURVIVORS NEAR THE MAIN ROAD Pastel, 14" x 17" (35.5 x 43.2cm), signed; signed & inscribed verso. €200 - 400

110

106 Martin Mooney, b.1960 DUBLIN WITH FOUR COURTS Oil on board, 11¾" x 23½" (29.8.06), signed & dated 2016 (MMXVI). €2500 - 4000

111

107 John Noel Smith, b.1952 THE STRING OGHAM Oil on canvas, 39¼" x 35½" (100 x 91cm), signed, inscribed & dated 2013 verso; artist no. 1313.

108 John Noel Smith, b.1952 MOVING LINES Oil on canvas, 35½" x 23¾" (90 x 60cm), signed, inscribed & dated 2017 verso; artist no. 1707.

€1500 - 2000

€800 - 1200

112

109 Elizabeth Cope, b.1952 STILL LIFE, VASE Oil on board, 24" x 29" (61 x 73.6cm), signed.

110 Neil Shawcross, RHA, RUA, b.1940 BECKS Mixed media, 22½" x 16½" (57.2 x 41.9cm), signed & dated 1987.

€800 - 1200

113

111 George Collie, 1904-1975 STILL LIFE WITH VASE OF FLOWERS Oil on board, 24" x 18" (61 x 45.6cm), signed. â&#x201A;¬1000 - 1500

114

112 Elizabeth Magill b.1959 DEER PARK (2) 2006 Monoprint, 34" x 24" (86 x 61cm), signed. Provenance: The Kerlin Gallery (label verso). â&#x201A;Ź700 - 1000

115

113 John Kingerlee, b.1936 STILL LIFE ETC (1990) Acrylic on board, 12" x 20" (30.5 x 50.9cm), signed & dated 1990. â&#x201A;¬1500 - 2500

116

114 John Kingerlee, b.1936 INVITATION, EATING OUT DUBLIN-SKIBEREEN Oil on paper, 16½" x 11½" (41.7 x 29.3cm), signed with initials; signed & dated 2018 verso. €1000 - 1500

117

115 Makiko Nakamura, b.1951 BEFORE A SWEET RAIN Oil on canvas laid on board, 23¾" x 23¾" (60 x 60cm), signed, inscribed & dated 21 May 2007 verso. Provenance: The Peppercanister Gallery, Dublin. €800 - 1200

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Standard Conditions of Business 1. Definitions In these Conditions, de Veres Art Auctions, who act as auctioneers and agents for the vendor, are called ‘the auctioneers’ (which expression shall be deemed to include their servants and agents) and the representative of de Veres conducting the auction is called ‘The Auctioneer’. 2. Third Party Liability Every person at or on the ‘Auctioneers’ premises or at any premises being used by the Auctioneer at any time shall be deemed to be there entirely at his/her own risk and shall have no claim whatsoever against the Auctioneers or their servants or agents in respect of any accident or incident which may occur nor any injury, damage or loss howsoever arising and whether or not same is the subject of any allegation of negligence. 3. General Whilst the Auctioneers make every effort to ensure the accuracy of their catalogue and the description of any lot: (a) Each lot as set out in the catalogue or as divided or combined with any other lots or lots is sold by the vendor with all faults, imperfections and errors of description. (b) Any claim under any Statute must be received in writing by the Auctioneers within three months of the sale. (c) The Auctioneers shall not be liable for consequential or resultant loss or damage whether sustained by a Vendor or a Purchaser or the owner of any item or their respective servants and agents arising in any circumstances whatsoever and irrespective of any claim made by any party as to negligence or lack of care of the Auctioneers or any part acting on their behalf. (d) Lots marked with † are those which deVeres hold a financial interest in. 4. The Auction (a) The Auctioneer has absolute discretion to divide any lot, to combine any two or more lots or to withdraw any lot or lots from the sale, to refuse bids, regulate bidding or cancel the sale without in any case giving any reason or previous notice. He may bid on behalf of the vendor for all goods which are being offered subject to reserve or at the Auctioneer’s discretion. (b) The highest bidder shall be the buyer except in the case of a dispute. If during the auction the Auctioneer considers that a dispute had arisen. He has absolute discretion to settle it or to re-offer the lot. The Auctioneer may at his sole discretion determine the advance or bidding or refuse a bid. (c) Each lot is put up for sale subject to any reserve price placed by the vendor. Whether or not there is a reserve price the seller has the right to bid either personally or by any one person (who may be the Auctioneer). (d) All conditions, notices, descriptions, statements and other matters in the catalogue and elsewhere concerning any lot are subject to any statements modifying or affecting the same made by the Auctioneer from the rostrum prior to any bid being accepted for the lot. 5. Recession Notwithstanding any other terms of these Conditions, if within 12 months after the sale, the Auctioneers have received from the buyer any notice in writing that in his view the lot is a deliberate forgery and within twenty-one days after such notification the buyer returns the same to the Auctioneers in the same condition as at the time of sale and by producing evidence, the burden of proof to be upon the buyer satisfies the Auctioneers that considered in the light of the entry in the catalogue the lot is a deliberate forgery, then the sale of the lot will be rescinded and the purchase price of the sale refunded. In the event of a dispute then the matter shall be settled by the President of the Institution of Chartered Surveyors in the Republic of Ireland. Both the buyer and the vendor agree to be bound by the decision . 6. Default The Auctioneers disclaim responsibility for default by - either the buyer or the vendor because they act as Agents for the vendor only and therefore do not pay out to the vendor until payment is received from the buyer. Instructions given by telephone are accepted at the sender’s risk and must be confirmed in writing forthwith. 7. In the event of a sale by private treaty both the vendor and the buyer agree to be found by these and any Special Conditions of Sale.

8. Retention of Title All goods remain the property of the vendor until paid for in full. The Auctioneers will not assume liability to discharge nett proceeds arising from the sale of goods until those goods have been paid for in full. VENDOR’S CONDITIONS 9. Instructions All goods delivered to the Auctioneers’ premises will be deemed to be delivered for sale by auction and will be catalogued and sold at the discretion of the Auctioneer and accepted by them subject to all the Sale Conditions. By delivering the goods to the Auctioneers for inclusion in their auction sales the vendor acknowledges that he or she has accepted and agreed to be bound by all these Conditions. 10. Collection and Deliveries The Auctioneers do not normally undertake the packing, collection or delivery of goods but will if requested use their best endeavors as Agent of the Owner to arrange for an independent contractor on the owner’s behalf to deal with packing, collection and/or delivery. The Auctioneer will not in any event arrange insurance of the goods and will accordingly not be liable for any loss or damage to goods howsoever arising including breakages or for any damage to premises, fixtures or fittings therein caused by such contractor or otherwise and the owner is responsive for all arrangements to verify that any such contractor and the goods is/are appropriately insured. Unless instructions are received to the contrary, charges (including VAT) for such services will be charged to the vendor’s account or discharged through the Auctioneers by the purchaser as the case may be. The Auctioneers’ liability (if any) will rise only where they themselves carry out packing and collection/delivery and only in the case of breakage or loss caused through deliberate negligence of their employees and in any event in one single contract and the Auctioneers’ liability will not exceed £500. Provided further than the Auctioneers will not be liable for consequential loss in any circumstances whatsoever. 11. Loss or Damage and Storage The Auctioneers reserve the right to store or arrange for the storage of goods held by them or delivered to them either on their own premises or elsewhere at their sole discretion and entirely at the owner’s risk. The Auctioneers shall not be liable for any loss (including consequential loss) howsoever caused of damage to goods of any kind including breakages, or for unauthorised removal of goods. Should the owner of goods so wish it will be his/her goods while they are in the possession of the Auctioneers. 12. Right to Re-sell The Auctioneer reserves the right to re-sell any item which has not been collected within thirty days of purchase. 13. Payment of accounts is by debit card up to €1000 or by bank transfer. We do not accept credit cards or cash transactions.

TERMS Purchaser 1. 25% incl. VAT will be added to the hammer price for each lot. 2. All accounts must be discharged by certified cheque, bank draft or cash. 3. The responsibility for items purchased passes to the purchaser on the fall of the hammer. 4. The Auctioneers reserve the right to look for 25% deposit on all goods. VAT Regulations: All lots are sold within the auctioneers VAT margin scheme. Revenue Regulations require that the buyers’ premium must be invoiced at a rate which is inclusive of VAT. This VAT is not recoverable by any VAT registered buyers.

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A Armstrong, A

B Ballagh, R Blackshaw, B Belton, L Bolay, V Boyd, J Brady, C

81 29, 30, 78 46, 47 105 39, 40 95

C Canning Wilks, M 69, 70 Carr, T 80 Collie, G 111 Collis, P 3, 98 Conor, W 74 Cooke, B 27, 28 Cope, E 109 Cullen, M 99 D Delaney, E

F Flanagan, B 18 Francis, M 43 G Gray, R 20, 21, 22, 23 H Healy, R Henry, G Henry, P Hirschig, A Hone, E Hone, N Renee Honta

52 15 11, 57 14 54, 55, 60 63 87

I Innes, C

J Jellett, M

K Keown, MT 48 Kernoff, H 56 King-Harman, A 61 Kingerlee, J 113, 114 L Leech, WJ 4,5,73 le Brocquy, L 16, 17,25, 33 Lennon, C 50, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94

M MacGonigal, M McCann, P McGuinness, N McSweeney, S Magill, E Miller, N Mooney, M N Nakamura, M Nicol, E

2 88, 89 8,59 32 112 34 106 115 64

O O’Brien, D 75 O’Casey, B 31 O’Conor, R 13, 62, 83, 84 O’Donoghue, H 35, 38,44 O’Malley, T 7 O’Neil, D 24, 82 O’Neill, L 100,101 O’Reilly, P 53 Orpen, W 72 P Percy French, W 65, 66, 67 R Robinson, M Russell, AE

79 76

S Scott, W 19, 104 Shawcross, N 102, 103, 110 Scott, P 51 Scully, S 42 Smith, JN 45, 87, 107, 108 Swift, P 26 T Teskey, D 1, 36, 37 W Warren, B Wilmer O’Brien, K

97 9,10

Y Yeats, Jack B 12, 58, 71, 85 Yeats, John B 86

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Irish Art Auctioneers & Valuers 35 Kildare Street, Dublin 2. Tel: 01 676 8300 info@deveres.ie www.deveres.ie