ART AUCTIONEERS & VALUERS
Irish Art Auction Tuesday 24th March, at 6pm at deVeres, 35 Kildare Street, Dublin 2
ART AUCTIONEERS & VALUERS
Auction:
Tuesday 24th March, at 6pm
On View: de Veres 35 Kildare Street Dublin 2 Friday, 20th March: Saturday, 21st: Sunday, 22nd: Monday, 23rd: Tuesday, 24th: Contact:
9.30am - 6pm 11am - 5pm 11am - 5pm 9.30am - 7pm 9.30am - 6pm
01 6768300
COLLECTION: Wednesday, 25th and Thursday 26th March FEES:
19½% plus VAT (23.985%)
de Veres 35 Kildare Street, Dublin 2 01 676 8300 www.deveres.ie Live Bidding available at:
the-saleroom.com www.facebook.com/deveresArtAuctions
ART AUCTIONEERS & VALUERS
Rooms with a view‌ We are pleased to announce an exciting new development, with the opening of an auction rooms and gallery space at 35 Kildare Street, Dublin 2. We have created an intimate and contemporary environment that will show carefully selected artworks and 20th Century Design furniture to best effect. Our viewings will take place at 35 Kildare Street, with the auction taking place next door, at Buswells Hotel. This auction on the 24th March is the first in our new space and consists of 92 works of Irish Art. We would like to thank you for your support over the years and will be delighted to welcome you to our first viewing at 35 Kildare Street.
John de Vere White Managing Director john@deveres.ie
Rory Guthrie Director roryguthrie@deveres.ie
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Aisling TĂłth Associate Director info@deveres.ie
ART AUCTIONEERS & VALUERS
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ART AUCTIONEERS & VALUERS
Auction Venue
deVeres
Auctioneers: John de Vere White Rory Guthrie
Illustrations: Front Cover: 31 Jack Butler Yeats RHA 1871-1957, THE BANG THE DOOR BOYS (1944) Back Cover: 19 Colin Middleton RHA RUA 1910-1983, RED LANDSCAPE (1962) Inside Front Cover: 40 Roderic O’Conor 1860-1940, waves breaking on the shore at sunset Inside Back Cover: 50 Jim Flavin 1961-2004, LUTE
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1 Charles Brady HRHA 1926-1997 JAPANESE PEAR Oil on canvas, 7½” x 10½” (19 x 27cm), signed.
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Provenance: Taylor Galleries, Dublin (label verso).
€1500 - 2000
Patrick Redmond, Contemporary FRIES Oil on canvas, 16” x 20” (41 x 51cm), signed, inscribed & dated 2007 verso. €400 - 600
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3 Patrick Collins HRHA 1911-1984 COWS SHELTERING Oil on board, 9½” x 10½” (24 x 27cm), signed.
Provenance: The Ritchie Hendriks Gallery, Dublin, June 1970 (label verso).
€3000 - 5000
4 Mainie Jellet 1897-1944 ABSTRACT Gouache, 10½” x 8” (27 x 20cm).
Provenance: Taylor Galleries, Dublin (label verso).
€2000 - 3000 6
5 Seán McSweeney HRHA b.1935 SHORELINE FIELD, SLIGO Oil on board, 14” x 18” (35.5 x 46cm), signed & dated 1998; signed & inscribed verso.
€2000 - 3000
6 Tony O’Malley HRHA 1913-2003 BIRDSONG, APRIL WALK Gouache, 13” x 8” (33 x 20cm), signed, inscribed & dated 3/69.
€1000 - 1500
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Nevill Johnson RHA 1911-1999 THE WINDOW Oil on canvas, 14” x 20” (36 x 51cm), signed; inscribed verso. Provenance: Associated American Artists, 5th Avenue, New York (label verso).
The Window was probably painted soon after Nevill Johnson moved to Dublin and began to exhibit with the Victor Waddington Gallery. It displays a sense of detachment and a lyrical melancholy rather than the visceral anger that dominates the first works he exhibited with Waddington, which were inspired by his despair in the aftermath of the war.
T he biomorphism of objects to create a sense of drama or narrative playing out that dominated these earlier paintings is still at the heart of the present painting, but it contains a stronger note of wit and ambiguity as well as a setting that moves away from the apocalyptic and towards the domestic. It is reasonable therefore to see in the present painting a more personal meditation. Much as the paintings located on barren coastlines, on the contested edge of land and sea that Johnson painted in the mid-1940s defined a moment of universal apocalyptic uncertainty, this work is situated between the domestic space and the external world.
T he cactus certainly has a strong human resemblance and a definitely female shape. It is both dynamically rhythmic and rather tortured and is set in a tightly organised triangle that leads to the church spire and back to the oil lamp and the thimble, two domestic objects that might perhaps associate the cactus with Johnson’s wife, from whom he had recently separated, or his mother. The latter is perhaps more likely as Johnson painted another work that he described as being in memory of his mother around this same period, in which a curtain by an open window blew in the wind.
The curtain in The Window acts with the wooden ledge to frame the composition and to focus our attention on the spire in the distance. This spire is perhaps a symbol of hope or of the spiritual dimension or aspiration within our physical everyday life; its ambiguity in the painting is reinforced by the fact that, despite Johnson’s own anti-clericalism he had, in the earlier 1940s, been close to entering the Catholic Church and his post-war work is full of Biblical references in both imagery and title. Dickon Hall, 2015
€3000 - 5000 8
8 Pauline Bewick RHA b.1935 STILL LIFE WITH ARTICHOKES Pen and watercolour, 27” x 40” (69 x 102cm), signed & dated 1965; inscribed verso.
Provenance: The Dawson Gallery, Dublin (label verso).
€2000 - 3000
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9 Martin Gale RHA b.1949 TROUBLE IN THE FIELDS Oil on canvas, 47¼” x 47¼” (120 x 120cm), signed & dated 1998 verso, with studio label.
€6000 - 9000
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10 Brian Bourke HRHA b.1936 LATE SUMMER, KNOCKALOUGH Oil on canvas, 45½” x 37¾” (116 x 96cm), signed, inscribed & dated 1977 verso. €4000 - 6000
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11 Seán McSweeney HRHA b.1935 SANDY FIELDS Oil on board, 12” x 16” (30 x 40cm), signed & dated 1990; signed & inscribed verso. €2000 - 3000
12 Seán McSweeney HRHA b.1935 EVENING LANDSCAPE Oil on canvas, 9”x 14” (23 x36cm), signed, inscribed & dated 1980 verso.
Provenance: Taylor Galleries, Dublin, June 1980, Cat No.14 (label verso).
€1000 - 1500
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13 Charles Brady HRHA 1926-1997 BOX FOR PINK DREAMS Oil on canvas, 13½” x 18¾” (34.5 x 47.5cm), signed, inscribed & dated 1995 label verso. €3500 - 4500
14 Peter Collis RHA 1929-2012 ROUNDWOOD LAKE Oil on board, 7” x 10¼” (18 x 26cm), signed; inscribed label verso. €800 - 1200
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15 Patrick Collins HRHA 1911-1984 ISLAND INSCAPE Oil on board, 13” x 16” (33 x 41cm), signed.
Provenance: Collection of Basil Blackshaw; gifted to the present owner.
€4000 - 6000
16 George Russell AE 1897-1935 FAMILY SWIM Oil on canvas, 16” x 21” (41 x 53.5cm), signed with initials. €2000 - 4000 14
17 Nevill Johnson RHA 1911-1999 THE MARINERS LADY Acrylic on board, 20” x 22” (51 x 56cm), signed, inscribed & dated 1987 verso.
Painted in 1987, The Mariner’s Lady dates from the period just before Nevill Johnson entered the last and most abstract period of his work and already demonstrates a bold and ambitious treatment of the subject. Johnson was remarkably uninfluenced by other artists, rarely visiting exhibitions, but in the late 1980s he began to look deeply at Picasso, whose work had so impressed him in 1936 when he visited Paris with John Luke.
W hile Johnson’s work of 1989 and 1990 was heavily influenced by Picasso’s later work, it is the latter’s analytical cubism from the first decade of the century that is important to the present painting. The picture space is fragmented into a shallow arrangement of overlapping planes, and the entire image is analysed and broken down through a highly abstracted formal language. This mixture of blocks and amorphous shapes is entirely the result of Johnson’s own process and prefigures his work of the 1990s.
J ohnson began these later paintings with detailed underdrawing on a prepared gesso surface that often contained many clearly representational elements that were later eliminated from the completed painting as shapes became less descriptive so that, as here, any narrative can become hinted at or concealed.
M any of Johnson’s later works are inspired by nostalgic and highly charged recollections of the past and perhaps this painting might have been drawn from a specific or general memory but it is also possible that the title might refer to Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner and that Johnson could have identified himself in some way with this figure. The painting might refer to his second wife Maggie, with some suggestion of hope and redemption in the bright palette that suffuses the painting and the heart-shaped flower in a vase towards the lower right of the canvas. Dickon Hall, 2015
€2000 - 3000 15
18 William Conor RHA RUA ROI 1881-1968 THE HORSE FAIR (c. 1937) Crayon and watercolour, 18½” x 15” (47 x 38cm), signed, inscribed artists label verso.
A s a young man Conor studied at the Belfast College of Art before entering David Allen & Sons as a lithographer, a process that left its mark on his whole career. Thus, here the broken textures in the drawing of the figures and horses, which are common to his style, betray his early training. Conor usually worked from sketches done on the spot, carrying a sketchbook in his pocket in which he noted ‘any little happening which strikes me as interesting and significant’. Reviewing his exhibition at the Waddington Galleries in 1948, the Irish Times (16 April 1948) commented that he had ‘a very rich technique’, not only was his drawing ‘solid’, his colour ‘rich and varied’ but he had a mysterious quality of “touch”,’ all things that are evident here. As usual with Conor, watercolour is used literally to bring colour to the work. The subject-matter is a favourite of Conor’s who was adept at capturing the stance of horses, whether static or in motion. The crowd, notably those in the foreground, are keenly observed while those beyond the horses – and the buildings too – have been treated in watercolour with very little drawing.
C onor exhibited a work of this title at the RHA in 1937, but whether it was this drawing or an oil is unknown. The artist occupied the studio at 11A Stranmillis Road, Belfast, from 1944-59, but this work, which probably remained in the studio, may well have been framed at a later date which would account for the OBE (awarded in 1952) and the RHA (1946) designation noted on the label on the reverese with the title.
Dr S. B Kennedy, 2015
€12000 - 16000
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19 Colin Middleton RHA RUA 1910-1983 RED LANDSCAPE (1962) Oil on canvasboard, 25” x 30” (64 x 76cm), signed with monogram; inscribed and dated 1962 verso
Provenance: Christies, London, 4th October 1985 (front cover illustration).
I t seems likely that the present painting is Red Landscape exhibited at the Magee Gallery in Belfast in 1962 in an exhibition of Colin Middleton’s paintings from 1940 to 1962. In 1962, Middleton was living in Lisburn and teaching there at Friends School and while many of the landscapes in this group are drawn from the north coast and also from Donegal, it is interesting to note that the name Largymore also appears.
T his area on the edge of Lisburn also inspired another significant landscape that used red as a dominant element in the work, Red Landscape, Largymore (1960); not since the mid-1950s had colour played such an emotive and symbolic role in Middleton’s painting. Both works also demonstrate an interest in a more formal geometric structure that is typical of this period, but the highly organised grid arrangement of the earlier picture is less tautly controlled and more free flowing and dynamic in Red Landscape, 1962.
nother interesting comparison is with Sundown, Carnalridge III (National Museums Northern Ireland), also painted A in 1960. It builds up the composition with a similar range of loosely formed squares and rectangles in carefully related colours and both paintings create space through the shifting scale of these repeated shapes, but the solid architectural construction of the earlier painting is less central to Red Landscape, where the contrasts of juxtaposed colours and a number of forceful diagonals convey a remarkable sense of exuberance, optimism and energy. This geometric analysis of the image and the picture space with the use of non-descriptive and often intense colour is reminiscent of Paul Klee, an artist in whom Middleton was very interested. Dickon Hall, 2015
€15000 - 20000
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20 George Campbell RHA 1917-1974 DULL DAY, MOORE STREET Oil on canvas, 20” x 14” (51 x 36cm), signed; signed & inscribed label verso, in a Victor Waddington frame.
Provenance: Sold through Victor Waddington Galleries, Dublin to F.L. Vickerman; by descent.
€3000 - 5000 20
21 Daniel O’Neill 1920-1974 classical RUINS Oil on board, 16” x 22” (41 x 56cm), signed. €5000 - 7000
22 Seamus O’Colmain 1925-1990 STREETSCAPE Oil on board, 24” x 36” (61 x 91cm), signed. €1500 - 2000
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23 Father Jack Hanlon 1913-1968 ROUNDSTONE HARBOUR Watercolour, 9” x 11” (23 x 28cm), signed; signed & inscribed verso.
Provenance: Taylor Galleries, Dublin (label verso).
€600 - 900
24 Father Jack Hanlon 1913-1968 CATTLE grazing, Ballyconneely Watercolour, 9” x 12” (23 x 30.5cm).
Provenance: Taylor Galleries, Dublin (label verso).
€400 - 600 22
25 Charles McAuley RUA ARCA 1910-1999 ON THE EDGE OF THE GREEN (most probably Cushendall G.C., Co. Antrim) Oil on board, 17¼” x 22” (44 x 56cm), signed. €1500 - 2000
26 Maurice Canning Wilks ARHA RUA 1911-1984 SLIEVE DONARD, MOURNE MOUNTAINS Oil on canvas, 14” x 17¾” (36 x 45cm), signed; inscribed verso. €1000 - 1500 23
27 Maurice Canning Wilks ARHA RUA 1911-1984 AT ROUNDSTONE, CO GALWAY Oil on canvas, 20” x 24” (51 x 61cm), signed, inscribed verso. €4000 - 6000
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28 Henry Healy RHA 1909-1982 VIEW OVER HOWTH HARBOUR Oil on canvas, 14” x 18” (36 x 46cm), signed. €800 - 1200
29 William Percy French 1854-1920 ALPINE VIEW Watercolour, 8¼” x 12” (21 x 30.5cm), signed. €2000 - 3000
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30 Walter Frederick Osborne RHA 1859-1903 A PENSIVE MOMENT (1894) Oil on canvas, 7” x 10” (18 x 25.5cm), signed & dated 28/3/94.
Provenance: Irish and Sporting Art, Christies London, 8th May 2009 (lot 20).
B etter known as a landscapist and painter of genre, Walter Osborne was also a superb portraitist. This can be seen both in his pictures of elegant Society women and their families and official portraits of professional men, and in his more informal studies of his family and friends. During the mid and late 1890s Osborne was living with his parents: animal painter William Osborne and Anne (née Woods), and his young niece Violet, at their family home at 5, Castlewood Avenue, Rathmines, and many attractive family groups and studies were painted there in this period.
1 894, when the present picture ‘A Pensive Moment’ was painted, was a busy year for Osborne: he made working visits to Galway and Antwerp, he sent pictures to exhibition, and he was painting commissioned pictures and family portraits. Amongst these are his portrait of Mrs Lucy Birdwood1, (the sister of Osborne’s brother-in-law, who had brought Violet to live with her grandparents); a watercolour of Violet in her high chair2; ‘A Pensive Moment’; and ‘At the Breakfast Table’, 1894 (also entitled ‘Portraits’)3, which features the artist’s mother and Violet seated at the table with William standing behind, which Osborne described as: ‘The best picture I think I have done’4.
T he two latter pictures can be associated together with their figures seated in interiors against the light, and a golden light entering through a window behind, suffusing the room with a soft, burnished tonality. Whether painting on a large canvas or on a small scale, Osborne’s pictures gain our attention with their human interest, sense of completeness and atmosphere.
T he young woman in ‘A Pensive Moment’ is shown in profile, sitting in an interior which is filled with a subdued, yet glowing, light. She is seated left of centre, facing out of the picture. Her hair is held back in a loose bun, and she wears a loose, mustard-coloured smock. She is absorbed in a reflective mood, and her face is gently painted. The surroundings, meanwhile, are executed more rapidly with vigorous strokes: items of furniture such as a high-backed sofa or chair, with a red cushion, the chair on which the woman is seated, and a table with flower-pot and plant in the foreground; and a panelled wall, wooden shutters and window behind.
Osborne employs a palette of warm mauves, browns, umbers and siennas, green and yellow, enlivened by the dash of red on the left and gold on the table, perhaps a cloth, which catches the light and is reflected in the shiny surface. Because of the small scale of the picture, the texture of pigment and vigour of brush-strokes can clearly be seen: in, for example, the long straight strokes on the girl’s smock vertical strokes on the sofa and with rapid stabs of green paint, while the girl’s face and ear are painted more softly and slightly blurred.
hile many of Osborne’s landscapes are signed at the bottom edge of the picture, some of his portraits of the 1890s W are signed on the left-hand side: low-down, in the middle, or at the top. Several of his drawings are inscribed with a particular date, and it is most useful that this small oil is also dated thus: 28/8/94, helping to place the picture in his oeuvre. Moreover, the fact that the signature and date are inscribed into the wet paint indicate that the picture was completed in one sitting.
T he pose of the sitter provides a sort of pendant to another small oil, that of ‘Stephen Gwynn’ painted earlier, in 18855, he facing in to the right, she facing to the left. Her identity is not known but, with her hair tied back, healthy complexion and smock, it is possible that she was a nurse or young woman working in the Osborne household. Along with several other informal intimate studies of women these offer a glimpse of a more reflective side of Osborne’s personality . Julian Campbell , February 2015
Notes:
1 2 3 4 5
Jeanne Sheehy, ‘Walter Osborne, NGI 1983, no. 85 illustrated p. 147 J. Sheehy ‘Walter Osborne’ Ballycotton, 1974, cat. No. 392 Sheehy, 1983, no. 84, illus. p. 146; J.Sheehy, ‘At the Breakfast Table’ in ‘Irish Paintings’, Gorry Gallery, Oct. 1994 no.8 Letter from Osborne to W.Stockley, Feb.1895, quoted by Jeanne Sheey, in Gorry Gallery, 1994, p.7 Sheehy, 1983 no. 80, illus. p. 142
€12000 - 16000
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31 Jack Butler Yeats RHA 1871-1957 THE BANG THE DOOR BOYS (1944) Oil on canvas, 9” x 14” (25 x 35cm), signed, inscribed verso.
Provenance: Sold through Victor Waddington Galleries, Dublin to F.L. Vickerman by descent to the present owner.
Literature: A Broadside (October 1912); No. 639 in Hilary Pyle’s ‘Jack B Yeats: A Catalogue Raisonne’ (p.583).
Y eats first sketched Halloween callers in 1912 (Sketchbook 167) and 1913 (Sketchbook 177) in the years after he had moved back to live in Ireland after many years in England. He published an illustration of children dressed up in their masks and costumes in A Broadsheet, printed at the Cuala Press, in December 1912. In this context the image proclaimed a distinctive aspect of Irish cultural life – the celebration of Halloween that extended back across the centuries. In this painting Yeats returns to the subject after a gap of thirty years in a manner typical of his later paintings that were frequently prompted by memories of earlier incidents and subjects. The Broadsheet image is quite different in character to the painting although both depict the arrival of a group of outrageously bedecked children on the doorstep.
M ake-believe and dressing up were of constant fascination to Yeats. He was not only a devotee of theatre in all its forms but a constant visitor to circuses and travelling fairs where clowns and performers in disguise became a favourite theme. In this painting he focuses on three youngsters who are not natural performers but whose masquerade nonetheless provides the basis of a bizarre encounter. Yeats places the viewer in the position of the householder who is confronted by this strange sight. The children stand demurely in the open doorway. Their reticent manner contrasts with the gregarious way in which they are dressed. Their expressions convey the innocence of childhood and the shyness of children as they timidly confront their spectator. A clown-like mask covers the face of one young boy and this and the haphazard nature of their costumes adds to the incongruity of the image.
T he surface of the painting is built up in a cacophony of colours and shapes. The intense blues of the shadows cast on the necks of the figures is complimented by a similar tone in the gloom of the surrounding walls and the reflected light across the painting. The intense white of the mask and the elaborate hat on the central figure contrasts with the dissipated atmosphere of the trees behind the boys and the spectral forms of the buildings in the background. The fantastic image of the disguised face is delightfully countermanded by the realism of the exposed brickwork of the entrance way on the right hand side of the painting. As in his other late paintings, Yeats builds up a complex composition in which paint is used to suggest a myriad of detail.
Dr. Roisin Kennedy, February 2015
€60000 - 80000
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32 Charles Vincent Lamb RHA RUA 1893-1964 GALWAY HOOKER Oil on canvas, 16” x 20” (40 x 50cm), signed. €3000 - 5000
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33 Norman J McCaig 1929-2001 SKERRIES HARBOUR Oil on canvas, 16” x 20” (41 x 51cm), signed. €1000 - 1500
34 Mary Swanzy HRHA 1882-1978 VIEW TOWARDS the dingle peninsula from dooks c.1917 Oil on board, 7” x 10” (18 x 25.5cm).
Provenance: A gift from the artist, by descent to the present owner.
€700 - 1000 31
The following works by Mainie Jellet (lots 35-39) come from a deceased estate
35 Mainie Jellett 1897-1944 PEACE Oil on canvas, 24” x 32” (61 x 81cm).
T he subject set for the 1920 Taylor Prize, awarded by the Royal Dublin Society, was “Peace”. The title was announced in the spring of the previous year. Mainie Jellett went on holiday in the summer of 1919 with the family to Fintragh House, near Killybegs. William Morgan Jellett was not with them. He was canvassing in the 1919 general election for the Trinity College seat at Westminster. He stood in the Unionist interest and won the seat. Bay Jellett, his second daughter, wrote a diary that summer holiday and recorded the family excitement about his being returned to Parliament.
M ainie had conceived of a painting for the Taylor Prize based on her holiday friends and two sisters, Bay in blue dress in the centre and Betty on the rock behind. The other figures are the German governess and Judith Weir, a family friend. Mainie did several sketches in pencil, a squared off drawing for the painting and oil sketches of individual figures. There had been controversy over the poor quality of work submitted for the Taylor Prize and Mainie determined to make a challenge. She won the prize in the year following the 1919 holiday at Fintragh.
S he had completed her studies at the Westminster Art School in London. Nevertheless she went on painting in the style she had learnt from Walter Sickert, who had been influential as a teacher. His decision to retire from the school, made in 1919, may have persuaded her to seek a new style for her painting in Paris. Under persuasion from Evie Hone she decided to enrol under André Lhote. Evie joined her at his academy.
“ Peace” marked the end of the first phase in her work, of realism under English teaching. She moved on to the severe but representational work taught by André Lhote and then to the even more severe, non-representational Cubism for her third, longest-lasting and most powerful work as a painter. Bruce Arnold, 2015
€15000 - 20000 32
36 Mainie Jellett 1897-1944 NORFOLK SQUARE, LONDON Oil on canvas, 22” x 15” (56 x 38cm), signed. Exhibited: Irish Museum Of Modern Art, December 1991-March 1992, Cat. No. 19, ref. C10 (label verso).
N orfolk Square, between Praed Street and Sussex Gardens in the Paddington area of West London, was where she and Evie Hone lodged while studying at the Westminster School. The house they lived in was Number 34. The square, though not as stylish as the Jellett home in Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin, but with houses of the same period, would have reminded her of her family home. Bruce Arnold, 2015 €3000 - 5000 33
37 Mainie Jellett 1897-1944 PORTRAIT OF WALTER BAYES Oil on canvas, 15” x 12” (38 x 30.5cm).
38 Mainie Jellett 1897-1944 PORTRAIT OF A MAN Oil on canvas, 12” x 10” (30.5 x 25.5cm).
€1500 - 2000
€1000 - 1500
39 Mainie Jellett 1897-1944 WORCESTERSHIRE LANDSCAPE Oil on board, 10” x 8” (25.5 x 20cm), inscribed & dated c.1918 verso.
Provenance: The Neptune Gallery, Dublin.
€800 - 1200 34
40 Roderic O’Conor 1860-1940 waves breaking on the shore at sunset Oil and watercolour on paper, 18½” x 24” (47 x 61cm).
Provenance: Private Collection, France; acquired by the present owner from Thierry Lannon, France, 2008.
Provenance: Studio of Roderic O’Conor; Inherited by the artist’s housekeeper, Mme. Henri Bellard, Nueil-sur-Layon; Purchased by Docteur Robelet, Nueil-sur-Layon, about 1956.
Literature: Jonathan Benington, Roderic O’Conor, a Biography with a Catalogue of his Work, Irish Academic Press, Dublin 1992, p. 233, cat. no. 405
O ne of O’Conor’s largest known paintings on paper, this sunset view of waves breaking on rocks is related to an extensive series of seascapes in oils which the artist painted on the wild Breton coast in the closing years of the nineteenth century. The bravura handling and high-keyed colours of Waves breaking on the Shore at Sunset evince the expressionist charge typical of this body of work, undertaken in the wake of the friendship that developed between O’Conor and Gauguin at Pont-Aven in 1894.
T his painting was part of a large collection of works on paper by O’Conor that was acquired by Dr. Robelet following the death of the artist’s widow in 1955. In September I991, I was privileged to be able to study and catalogue the present work in the home of its French owner.
Jonathan Benington, 4 March 2015
€30000 - 40000 35
41 Austin Molloy fl 1912-1930 THOUGH MANY ARE CALLED, I WILL GATHER THEM IN, c.1917 Pen, ink and pencil on paper, 16” x 8¾” (41 x 22cm), inscribed.
Provenance: Inscribed on verso (not in artists hand) ‘Purchased from Harry Clarke, 33 North Frederick Street, Dublin’.
Literature: Nicola Gordon Bowe and Elizabeth Cumming, ‘The Arts and Crafts Movements in Dublin and Edinburgh: 1885-1925’ (Irish Academic Press, Dublin 1998).
lthough this fine, large black and white illustration might initially appear to be by the hand of Harry A Clarke and bears a number of his hallmarks, not least the exceptionally expressive and assured variety and skill of pen work, it is much more likely the work of his friend and colleague, Austin Molloy.
A s fellow art students at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art, Molloy and Clarke not only spent each summer between 1909 and 1914 together on the Aran Islands, painting and living mostly on Inishere, but they both also excelled in graphic illustration and stained glass while attending the School. In 1912, Molloy was awarded the school prize for stained glass, they both worked on the City Hall murals depicting the early History of Dublin for Headmaster James Ward and later, when Clarke resigned his post as teacher of Design at the School in 1923, Molloy took over his classes. As students, they had both won coveted medals at the Board of Education National Competition held in London, and continued to exhibit with the Arts and Crafts Society of Ireland, whose catalogue covers they each designed – Clarke in 1917 and Molloy in 1925. Furthermore, Clarke clearly acknowledged Molloy’s help in making his St. Patrick window in the Honan Chapel, Cork by inscribing his friend’s name on the glass beside his own in June 1915. Molloy was a frequent visitor to J. Clarke & Sons Studio at 33 North Frederick Street, not far from where he lived on the North Strand, where the original owner of the illustration acquired it.
T he design is dominated by the gigantic cloaked figure of the Grim Reaper in a graveyard. Bushy haired and bearded, he stands cradling an unfurled roll-call of names over whose imminent fate he grimaces. One bare foot is poised ominously, his long-nailed toes at the ready beside the scythe he will metaphorically wield, oblivious to the commemorative inscription on the gravestone at his feet. Around his neck are hung tokens of earthly vanities – masks, feathered hats, a high heeled shoe, and on his shoulder a crow perches knowingly. Hungry prowling dogs, masquerading monkeys and a second hooded crow wearing a mask around its neck accompany him. On the left hand of the picture, behind him, the grateful Blessed gaze, wrapt and smiling, as a dove rises from an open birdcage borne by one of them. But on the right, behind the Reaper, the Damned weep and seek mercy, while the sumptuously-tailed peacock, bird of death, stamps an impatient foot poised on the parapet beside his master. In a masterful composition, the foreground Celtic cross, spade and scythe and upturned gravestone frame the grassy hollow of the country church graveyard and wooded landscape in which this drama takes place. The words of the angularly inscribed text on the well-used blade of the scythe are an amalgamation of warnings from the biblical parables recounted in the Gospel of St. Matthew.
T he spare graphic treatment of the Reaper’s naked arms, knees and legs resembles Clarke’s – both men having profited by Sir William Orpen’s life-drawing classes in the Dublin School of Art. Similarly, the Reaper’s features are drawn in a way that recalls Clarke’s book illustrations of c. 1914-15 and anticipates in its bold cursive strokes and dotted lines Molloy’s own published work of the 1920s. The lightly drawn faces of the Blessed and the Damned with their shorthand features in the background are particularly interesting as they refer directly to a pencil and watercolour design among the Clarke Studios manuscripts in Trinity College Library for the Knapp Memorial window in West Kensington Carmelite Church – when both Harry Clarke and Austin Molloy were working in the studio.
Nicola Gordon Bowe, March 2015
€2000 - 3000
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42 Kenneth Webb RWA FRSA RUA b.1927 SUMMER FLOWERS Oil on board, 18” x 14” (46 x 36cm), signed, inscribed verso. €2000 - 3000
43 Kenneth Webb RWA FRSA RUA b.1927 LAKE LANDSCAPE Oil on canvas, 15” x 36” (38 x 92cm), signed. €3000 - 5000 38
44 Kitty Wilmer O’Brien RHA 1910-1982 AN CEANN COMHAIRLE GRAVE – 1980 – BUCKLESS CO DONEGAL Oil on board, 14” x 20” (36 x 51cm), signed; inscribed label verso. €1500 - 2000
45 Kitty Wilmer O’Brien RHA 1910-1982 CROAGH PATRICK AND SHEEFRY MOUNTAINS Gouache, 9” x 24¾” (23 x 63cm), inscribed verso; inscribed label verso. €800 - 1200
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46 John Shinnors b.1950 THE LIGHTHOUSE CAT Oil on canvas, 21½” x 23” (55 x 58.5cm), signed.
Provenance: Taylor Galleries, Dublin (label verso).
€5000 - 7000
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47 Ciaran Lennon b.1947 7 PART ARBITRARY COLOUR COLLECTION (7) Oil on copper, each 9” x 5½” (23 x 14cm), one signed & dated 2007, each with studio label verso. €2000 - 4000
41
48 Hughie O’Donoghue b.1953 ON THE RAPIDO Oil on paper, 22” x 30” (56 x 76cm).
Provenance: Purdy Hicks Gallery, London (label verso).
€3000 - 5000
42
49 Hughie O’Donoghue b.1953 ON THE RAPIDO Mixed media on paper, 22” x 30” (56 x 76cm), signed & dated 1998.
Provenance: Purdy Hicks Gallery, London (label verso).
€3000 - 5000
43
50 Jim Flavin 1961-2004 LUTE Bronze, 27¾” high (70.5cm), signed, edition 1/5.
51 John Behan RHA b.1932 HEAD WITH A FLIGHT OF BIRDS Bronze, 20” high (51cm), including base, signed, ed. 3/6.
J im Flavin was born in Limerick and went on to study at NCAD, The Crawford School of Art in Cork and Lasallian International Art & Culture Centre, Florence. He was primarily an abstract artist, interested in the fluidity of bronze and the forms and textures he could create with the material and patina. He favoured soft, flowing shapes and focused on the different sections of each artwork and the way in which he bought them together to achieve the form and texture he desired.
€1500 - 2000
H e was a regular exhibitor at The RHA, Dublin in the 1990s and is represented in Private and Corporate Collections including AIB, Áras an Uachtaráin, Dublin and Limerick Corporations.
€1000 - 2000
44
52 Patrick O’Reilly b.1957 DEW DROP Bronze with lacquer finish, 19¾” x 19¾” (50 x 50cm), signed & dated 2007, ed. 1/1. €2000 - 3000 53 Patrick O’Reilly b.1957 BALANCE (2012) Mixed media with scales, 25” x 20” (64 x 51cm), signed. €1500 - 2000
45
54 Robert Ballagh b.1943 ADOLPH GOTTLIEB BOX Mixed media, 12” x 16” (30 x 40cm).
Provenance: David Hendriks Gallery, Dublin, 1974 (exhibition label verso).
€2000 - 3000
55 Robert Ballagh b.1943 THEO McNAB BOX Mixed media, 12” x 16” (30 x 40cm).
Provenance: David Hendriks Gallery, Dublin, 1974 (exhibition label verso).
€200 - 3000 46
56 Seán McSweeney HRHA b.1935 WICKLOW LANDSCAPE Oil on canvas, 8” x 10” (20 x 25.5cm), signed; inscribed verso.
Provenance: Taylor Galleries, Dublin, June 1980, Cat. No.25 (label verso).
€1000 - 1500
57 Seán McSweeney HRHA b.1935 NEAR THE LANE Oil on board, 9” x 14” (23 x 36cm), signed & dated 1983; inscribed verso.
Provenance: Taylor Galleries, Dublin (inscribed label verso).
€1200 - 1600 47
58 Brian Bourke HRHA b.1936 KNOCKALOCK Oil on paper laid on board, 39” x 27½” (99 x 70cm), signed, inscribed & dated 1977 verso. €2000 - 4000
59 Patrick Hickey HRHA 1927-1998 WATERFALL Watercolour, 20” x 24” (51 x 61cm), signed, inscribed & dated 1984. €500 - 700 48
60 Eric Patton RHA 1925-2004 SCRAP HEAP Oil on board, 18” x 14” (45.5 x 35cm), signed, inscribed verso. €600 - 900
61 Eric Patton RHA 1925-2004 HAYSTACKS Oil on canvas, 19¾” x 23¾” (50 x 60cm), signed. €600 - 900 49
62 Neil Shawcross RUA ARHA b.1940 TABLE TOP Oil on paper, 23” x 15½” (58.5cm x 39.5cm), signed & dated 1996. €1000 - 1500
63 Norah McGuinness HRHA 1901-1980 MUCKISH Crayon, 8” x 10” (20 x 25cm), inscribed; with studio stamp.
64 Seán McSweeney HRHA b.1935 DESERTED DWELLING Egg tempera, 5” x 8” (13 x 20cm) signed; signed & inscribed verso.
€800 - 1200
€600 - 900
50
65 Neil Shawcross RUA ARHA b.1940 GORDON’S DRY GIN Oil on canvas (91 x 45.5cm), signed & dated 2014. €1500 - 2000
66 Maria Simmonds-Gooding ARHA b.1939 FARMSTEAD Oil on board, 15¼” x 21½” (39 x 55cm), signed.
67 Mark O’Neill b.1963 DECK CHAIR Oil on board, 10½” x 13¾” (27 x 35cm), signed & dated 2000.
€500 - 700 €800 - 1200
51
68 George K Gillespie RUA 1924-1996 GWEEDORE, COUNTY DONEGAL Oil on canvas, 24” x 36” (61 x 91cm), signed, inscribed verso. €2000 - 3000
69 Liam Treacy 1934-2004 TOWARDS CHRIST CHURCH Oil on board, 14 x 18” (35.5 x 46cm), signed; inscribed & dated 1984 artists studio label verso. €500 - 700 52
70 William John Leech RHA ROI 1881-1968 THE CHURCH AT THORNTON-LE-DALE, YORKSHIRE Oil on canvas, 30½” x 27 (77.5 x 68.5cm), signed.
Painted during the war in 1944, churches and cemeteries were of great interest to Leech and it was subject matter he often returned to.
€2000 - 4000
53
71 Sir William Orpen RA RI HRHA 1878-1931 GRACE AT HOWTH BEACH Pencil, 12” x 9” (30.5 x 23cm), signed, inscribed verso. €800 - 1200
72 Mary Swanzy HRHA 1882-1978 QUAYSIDE Coloured crayon, 7½” x 10” (19 x 25.5cm).
Provenance: Jorgensen Fine Art.
€600 - 900 54
73 Derek Hill HRHA 1916-2000 CONTINENTAL STREETSCAPE Oil on canvas, 16” x 20” (41 x 51cm), signed with monogram.
Provenance: The Nicholas Gallery, Belfast (label verso).
€1500 - 2000
74 Nano Reid 1900-1981 COTTAGE, WEST OF IRELAND Watercolour, 10 x 13¾” (25 x 35cm), signed. €700 - 1000
55
75 Gerard Dillon 1916-1971 MARINE MOVEMENT Mixed media on canvas, 16” x 20” (40 x 51cm), signed & inscribed verso. €1400 - 1800
76 Gerard Dillon 1916-1971 BIRDS Mixed media, 18 x 42” (46 x 107cm). €2000 - 3000
56
77 Gerard Dillon RHA 1916-1971 IMAGES ON BROWN Crayon, 8” x 15” (28 x 38cm), signed, inscribed verso.
Provenance: Taylor Galleries, Dublin (label verso).
€600 - 900
78 Gerard Dillon RHA, 1916-1971 COLLAGE – ABSTRACT Mixed media, 13½” x 21¾” (34 x 55cm), inscribed verso.
Provenance: Taylor Galleries, Dublin (label verso).
€600 - 900
57
79 Charles Brady HRHA, 1926-1997 FOLDED ENVELOPE Oil on canvas, 16” x 20” (41 x 51cm), signed.
Provenance: Taylor Galleries, Dublin (label verso).
€2000 - 3000
80 Jane O’Malley b.1944 NEW YEARS DAY PAINTING, 1993 Oil on board, 24” x 24” (61 x 61cm), signed, inscribed & dated 1936 verso. €800 - 1200 58
81 Tony O’Malley HRHA 1913-2003 VINEGAR HILL FROM BREE HILL - LATE AUTUMN Oil on board, 21” x 33” (53.5 x 84cm), signed; signed inscribed & dated 6/1960 verso. €3000 - 5000
82 Peter Pearson RHA b.1955 VIEW TOWARDS THE FOUR COURTS, DUBLIN Oil on canvas, 16” x 20” (41 x 51cm), signed. €800 - 1200 59
83 Louis le Brocquy HRHA 1916-2012 THE TAIN – CHARIOTS Brush lithograph, paper size 15” x 21¼” (38 x 54cm), signed, inscribed & dated 1969, no. 36, ed. 53/70. €1500 - 2000
84 Louis le Brocquy HRHA 1916-2012 THE TAIN – WOLFHOUND Brush lithograph, paper size 15” x 21¼” (38 x 54cm), signed, inscribed & dated 1969, no. 29, ed. 53/70. €1500 - 2000 60
85 Seán McSweeney HRHA b.1935 TROOPERSTOWN HILL, GLENDALOUGH, CO. WICKLOW Watercolours, a pair, each 11½ x 13½” (29 x 34cm), one signed. €800 - 1200
86 Markey Robinson 1918-1999 SHAWLIES ON THE SHORE Gouache on board, 16” x 24” (41 x 61cm), signed. €1500 - 2000
61
87 Yvonne Moore, Contemporary DRESSER Oil on canvas, 30” x 20” (76 x 51cm), signed with initials. €1400 - 1800
88 Yvonne Moore, Contemporary STILL LIFE – FRUIT Oil on canvas, 12” x 24” (30 x 60cm), signed with initials. €600 - 900
62
90 Frank Egginton RCA, 1908-1990 THE NEW LAKE, DUNFANAGHY, CO DONEGAL Oil on board, 12” x 16” (30 x 40cm), signed.
89 Robert Ballagh b.1943 3rd OF MAY - GOYA Screenprint, 20” x 24” (51 x 61cm), signed and dated 1973, ed. 33/100.
Provenance: David Hendriks Gallery, Dublin, October 1979 (label verso).
Provenance: The Art Shop & Boutique, Londonderry (label verso).
€600 - 900 €800 - 1200
91 George K Gillespie RUA 1924-1996 CROLLY RIVER, CO DONEGAL Oil on board, 12” x 16” (30 x 40cm), signed, inscribed label verso.
92 George K Gillespie RUA 1924-1996 IN THE KILLARIES, CONNEMARA Oil on board, 10½” x 17¼” (26.5 x 44cm), signed, inscribed verso.
€600 - 900
€600 - 900
63
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. 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. 3% commission due to saleroom.com for lots purchased using Live Bidding. 14. Payment: Cash, bankers draft or cheque. With the exception of American Express, Credit cards are also accepted, subject to a charge 0f 1.5% on the invoice total. Debit and Laser cards are also accepted, at no charge, but are subject to daily limits as determined by your bank. TERMS Purchaser 1. 19½%+ 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. 64
Ballagh, R Brady, C Behan, J Bewick, P Bourke, B Campbell, G Collins, P Collis, P Dillon, G
54,55,89 1,13,79 51 8 10,58 20 3,15 14 75,76,77,78
Egginton, F
90
Flavin, J French, W
50 29
Gale, M Gillespie, G
9 68,91,92
Hanlon, Fr. J Healy, H Hickey, P Hill, D
23,24 28 59 73
Jellett, M Johnson, N Lamb, C LeBrocquy, L Leech, W Lennon, C
4,35,36,37,38,39 7,17 32 83,84 70 47
McAuley, C McCaig, N McGuinness, N McSweeney, S Middleton, C Molloy, A Moore, Y
25 33 63 5,12,56,57,64,85 19 41 87,88
O’Brien, K.W O’Donoghue, H O’Colmain, S O’Conor, R O’Neill, D O’Neill, M O’Malley, J O’Malley, T O’Reilly, P Orpen, W Osborne, W. F
44,45 48,49 22 40 21 67 80 6,81 52,53 71 30
Patton, E Pearson, P
60,61 82
Redmond, P Reid, N Robinson, M Russell, G Shawcross, N Shinnors, J Simmonds-Gooding, M Swanzy, M
Treacy, L
69
Webb, K Wilks, M.C
42,43 26,27
Yeats, J.B
31
2 74 86 16 62,65 46 66 34,72 Cover illustrations Front: Lot 36 Gerard Dillon 1916-1971 BLUE NUDE WITH DANCING PIERROT Inside front: Lot 98 Markey Robinson 1918-1999 UNLOADING THE CATCH Inside back: Lot 68 An extending dining table by Paul Geoffroy Back: Lot 8 Donald Teskey b. 1956 BUS STOP, KIMMAGE ROAD WEST
ART AUCTIONEERS & VALUERS
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