GORRY GALLERY
19. Daniel Maclise R.A. 1806-1870
FRONT COVER: Walter Frederick Osborne R.H.A. 1859-1903 (detail) Catalogue Number: 13 Š Gorry Gallery
GORRY GALLERY requests the pleasure of your company at the private view of
An Exhibition of 18th - 21st Century Irish Paintings
including a collection of Modern European Pictures
On Sunday, 16th November, 2014 Wine 3.00 p.m.
This exhibition can be viewed prior to the opening by appointment also on Friday and Saturday 14th and 15th November from 11.30 a.m. - 5.30 p.m. and Sunday 16th November from 12 noon - 3.00 p.m. prior to the opening and sale of exhibition.
www.gorrygallery.ie
16th - 29th November 2014
13. Walter Frederick Osborne R.H.A. 1859-1903 ‘Tea in the Garden’ c.1902 Oil on canvas 63.6 x 76
Inscription Verso ‘Miss Crawford 18. Miss Stockley 9 / Castlewood Avenue’ in the handwriting of James Gorry Senior 1900-1967 Exhibited: Irish Art in the 19th Century, ROSC Exhibition, Crawford Municipal Art Gallery, Cork 1971, no.119 Provenance: Mr. and Mrs. E. A. McGuire; Irish Sale, Christie’s, London, 20 May 1999, lot 177 Literature: Cyril Bennett and Jeanne Sheehy, Irish Art in the 19th Century. ROSC ’71, Cork 1971; J. Sheehy, Walter Osborne, Ballycotton, 1974, cat. no.570,p.151; Jeanne Sheehy, Walter Osborne, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 1983, p.175; J. Campbell ‘Walter Osborne, Tea in the Garden’, Irish Sale, Christie’s, London, 1999, p.144-145.
Page 2 – Gorry Gallery
An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings
Tea in the Garden brings together two of Walter Osborne’s favourite themes: children and the garden. He represented children in open-air settings throughout his career, and during the 1890’s painted them in Dublin streets, at the market, and in parks and gardens, sometimes in the company of adults. He also painted a superb study of his artist friend J.B.S. MacIlwaine, 1892 (National Gallery of Ireland) perhaps in the latter’s garden in Foxrock. His scenes with children include In St. Stephen’s Green, c.1895,(1) and Dublin Park, Light and Shade, c.1895 (NGI), which includes a young working mother with children and two elderly men in a shady dappled park. After the death of Osborne’s sister Violet in childbirth in Canada in 1893, his little niece, also named Violet, came to live with her grandparents: animal painter William Osborne, and his wife Annie Jane (who was originally from Co. Clare), at their home at 5 Castlewood Avenue, Rathmines, Co. Dublin. Osborne settled back into his family home, helping with the rearing of Violet. Much of his subject matter of the 1890’s and early twentieth century derives from this happy family environment, and Violet is featured in many paintings: as a baby with her grandparents, as a small child, as a girl with other children playing games indoors, and in sun-filled gardens. These pictures convey themes of childhood and family happiness. In the Irish Census of 1901 Osborne is recorded as living in Castlewood Avenue, in the Parish of St. Peter, Rathmines and Rathgar East, along with his parents, who were now in their seventies, their domestic servant, Kate Browne, aged twenty-two, and Violet, aged seven. The Osbornes’ religion was Church of Ireland, while Violet and Kate were Roman Catholic in faith.(2) As indicated in the Census, the Crawford (or Cranford) family, neighbours of the Osbornes (and also Church of Ireland in faith),were also living in Castlewood Avenue.(3) The householder was Mrs. Rebecca Crawford, aged fifty, who had been born in ‘Middleton’ (presumably Midleton, Co. Cork), and now a widow. Her two daughters were Kate Elizabeth, aged twenty, and Aileen Mary, aged eighteen. They had been born on Colombo, Ceylon, and were now students of music: Kate of the violin and Aileen of the piano. The theme of the garden was one that had attracted many painters through the centuries: there were scenes of gardens in Illuminated Manuscripts and Books of Hours, Chinese brush paintings, Persian and Indian miniatures, and paintings by Watteau and Fragonard. The garden became a favourite subject of the Pre-Raphaelite and Impressionists painters in the 19th Century, the former evoking themes of romance, seclusion or contemplation, and detailed flowers having a symbolic value; while Impressionists painters represented mothers and An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings
children or family picnics in sunshine, evoking a world of happiness and leisure. Debra Mancoff asserts that; “In the nineteenth century artists . . . forged a more intimate relationship with the garden.”(4) “A popular motif in painting, particularly among the Impressionists circle, was the family relaxing in the garden.” (5) Indeed, many of the Impressionists owned their own gardens in which they could paint. At the start of the twentieth century Osborne painted a series of sunny garden pictures, which included Violet and other children, his mother, and friends. These include In the Garden, Castlewood Avenue, c.1901(6) a touching study of five children seated upon dappled grass, and the related picture Summertime, 1901 (Corporation of Preston); the much loved Tea in the Garden, c.1902 (Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane); and the present smaller painting, also entitled Tea in the Garden. Painted in a relaxed Impressionistic manner, these are amongst the finest pictures in Osborne’s career. In Tea in the Garden the artist depicts five figures in a verdant, sheltered bower, protected by a canopy of leaves, given depth by shadow, and warmed by sunlight. It is as if we have come across a scene in a play by Shakespeare, or a secret garden in children’s literature. Yet, as well as being Romantic, Osborne’s painting is also modern, showing young people in a sunny Dublin garden at the opening of the twentieth century. On the left of the picture is a young woman with white blouse and long dark skirt. She is seated at a round table, holds a silver teapot, and pours tea. An inscription on the reverse of the canvas identifies the sitter as ‘Miss Crawford’, presumably the younger sister Aileen, aged eighteen, although she appears older. Her figure provides a sort of ‘anchor’ to the composition, which becomes looser across the canvas. A child stands close to her watching her pour the tea. In the centre foreground are two young children seated upon the grass, while behind them is the shadowy figure of an elderly woman in black, seated on a green bench. Jeanne Sheehy suggests that this may be Osborne’s mother, while the child who looks out at the viewer is Violet. (7) The painting has great freshness and boldness, painted directly en plein air, probably in one or two sittings. The canvas scintillates with a range of variegated colours, and is enlivened by vigourous dabs of paint and gestural brushstrokes. Bold brushstrokes on the young woman’s face, the tablecloth and the children’s clothes, suggests the fall of sunlight. Although the young woman sits mainly in shadow, there are touches of lavender and green in her blouse. In the hedge behind there are touches of blues and greens, pinks and mauves, and the foliage at the top of the picture is rendered with dashes of green and pink Gorry Gallery – Page 3
paint, with a glimpse of blue sky visible through the leaves. In common with many garden paintings by the Impressionists the bars of the bench are viridian in hue, suggested by bold horizontal brushstrokes. The representation of the faces and clothes of the children is highly expressive, as if Osborne is using the full range of his palette, with pink, pale green, cream, blue, white, lavender, dark blue, yellow and turquoise, applied in dabs and flourishes of paint, that seem to change direction as he works.(8) In contrast to the careful, deliberate style of his early Naturalistic pictures, Osborne is now painting in a highly expressive, nondescriptive manner.
painting from Nature, joyousness of colour and boldness of execution, it is one of the most pure examples of Impressionism by an Irish artist. In its garden subject, intimate mood, treatment of sunlight and light brushwork, Tea in the Garden recalls several plein air and garden scenes by the Impressionists, notably Renoir, Monet, Sargent and in particular, Berth Morisot, in her gentle sympathy for people, light delicate brushstrokes and daring, sketchy aesthetic.
Aside from some of the late paintings of Nathaniel Hone (which are more subdued in tone), and the Impressionist or Post-Impressionist landscapes of Roderic O’Conor, Tea in the Garden is unprecedented; in its’ directness of
Osborne’s Tea in the Garden is a study for, or a version of, the larger canvas of the same name in the Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane (illustrated below). The two pictures are remarkably similar, in the characters depicted, in composition, in palette and free brush-work, and even in details – such as the straw hat lying on the grass. However, passages of the Hugh Lane picture are more carefully painted: for example, the silhouette of the young woman’s figure, the delicate branches of the trees, and in the use of sweet green hues; and it appears unfinished in the lower right-hand corner, where bare canvas shows through the light paintwork. Julian Campbell
© Collection Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane. Notes: 1. Jeanne Sheehy, Walter Osborne, Ballycotton, 1974, cat.no.422; illustrated on cover. 2. Census of Ireland. 1901. nationalarchives.ie. 3. The name of the family is given as ‘Cranford’ in the typed print-outs of the 1901 Census, and can be read as ‘Cranford’ or ‘Crawford’ in the handwritten registers of the Census. (Census of Ireland 1901. nationalarchives.ie) 4. Debra N. Mancoff, The Garden in Art, London and New York, 2011 p.160.
5. D. Mancoff, p.146. 6. J. Sheehy, Walter Osborne, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 1983, p.133; illustrated in colour p.38. See also Adams Sale, 5th December 2001, lot 34. 7. J. Sheehy, 1983, p.135. 8. Similarly, Greek artist Nikolaos Grigos (1842-1901), in his portrait of Oriental man in profile (Alexandros Museum, Athens) combines loose figurative drawing with colourful, expressive brushstrokes.
Here and there across the canvas are dabs, whirls and flourishes of paint. They are like patches of pigment floating on the surface of the canvas, yet also like windows of sunlight, glimpses through to a golden world.
Page 4 – Gorry Gallery
An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings
of Tempo Manor, County Fermanagh, an estate acquired by his father-in-law. Both men would serve as MPs for Belfast, Robert James Tennent representing the Liberal interest from 1847 to 1852. He and his wife (who died in 1850) had a daughter Letitia, named after her father’s heiress cousin. In 1860 Letitia Tennent married Henry Harrison. His father John was a successful Belfast wine merchant, ship owner and insurance agent who in 1854 had bought Holywood House, County Down (and most of the town of the same name). It was here that Henry and Letitia’s daughter Sarah Cecilia Harrison was born in 1863, and four years later her brother Henry, future Nationalist politician and biographer of Charles Stewart Parnell. The family’s life changed in 1873 when Henry Harrison senior died and Letitia along with her children moved to London. It was in that city Sarah Cecilia received the greater part of her formal education, attending the Slade School of Art from 1878 to 1885. However she never forgot her origins in Belfast, exhibiting there as early as 1879 when aged only sixteen.
17. Sarah Cecilia Harrison H.R.H.A. 1863-1941 ‘Portrait of Mrs. Hartley Withers’ (The Artist’s Mother) Signed with monogram and dated 1897 Exhibited: Belfast Art Gallery and Museum, on loan from the Artist. Original exhibition label verso
That Sarah Cecilia Harrison should have been the first woman elected to Dublin City Council in 1912 is not unexpected given her maternal family’s long involvement in radical politics. She was a great-grandniece of Henry Joy McCracken, scion of a wealthy Belfast mercantile dynasty and one of the founders of the United Irishmen. In 1830 his niece Eliza married Robert James Tennent whose uncle William Tennent had likewise been associated with the United Ireland movement. After the failure of the 1798 uprising, William Tennent spent two years imprisoned in Scotland; he subsequently returned to Belfast where he became one of the city’s most prominent businessmen. In his own youth, Robert James Tennent had led an adventurous life, in 1824 joining Lord Byron in Greece to fight for that country’s independence from the Ottoman Turks. His companion on that journey was James Emerson who later married Robert James’s cousin Letitia, only legitimate child of William Tennent. Her husband took Letitia’s surname and entered public service, eventually becoming Sir James Emerson Tennent An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings
Thereafter she regularly showed work in the city, usually with the Belfast Art Society at the Belfast Art Gallery and Museum. Evidently it was on one such occasion that she exhibited this work, which would have had a particular resonance because the sitter was her mother: in 1896 Letitia Harrison had married again, her new husband being Henry Hartley Withers from an affluent Liverpool family. Even if unfamiliar with the name, viewers of the picture would immediately have recognised Mrs Withers and her connection with Belfast, city of her birth and first marriage. The familial link between artist and subject gives this picture a special place in Sarah Cecilia Harrison’s oeuvre. Always a portraitist of exceptionally sensitive merit, she excelled herself in the representation of her mother. Shown in profile and, despite having remarried, dressed entirely in black, the sombreness of her appearance is redeemed only by a fob chain. The carefully dressed greying hair accentuates the nuanced pallor of her skin and dark background emphasises the contour of her features. In its combination of candour and love, the picture bears comparison with Whistler’s famous Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1, the portrait of his own mother painted in 1871. The two works share the same air of solemnity and reflection, and employ the same clean white light cast on sitter. But Harrison’s portrait also recalls the cabinet portraits produced in northern Europe from the 16th and 17th centuries by artists from Hans Holbein the Younger onwards. In particular its dimensions make this a work intended for personal contemplation rather than public display, the depiction of a beloved relative. There is nothing here to suggest the hectic history of Letitia Withers’ forbears or the equally active role which her daughter would soon play in Dublin’s cultural and political life. Instead this is a moment of meditative calm immaculately captured for posterity. Robert O’Byrne Gorry Gallery – Page 5
1. James Arthur O’Connor c.1792-1841 ‘A Coastal Scene’ Oil on wood 20.3 x 25.7 Signed and dated 1832
This picture dates from a significant period in O’Connor’s life. Having emigrated from Ireland in 1822, the artist based himself in London for the remainder of his career. However, he was an enthusiastic traveller, and shortly after painting this picture, embarked on a lengthy sojourn abroad, spending nine months in Paris and a further six travelling on the Saar and Moselle valleys. The town in this diminutive painting has been identified tentatively in the past as Folkestone, but comparison with contemporaneous views of the town cast some doubt over this. The cliffs certainly suggest the Kent coastline, and the sky its changeable weather, but the local detail is less convincing. It is interesting to compare the picture with examples by J.M.W. Turner, who painted Folkestone and the adjacent coastline over many years and from several different vantage points. His watercolour Fishing Boats on Folkestone Beach, Kent (c.1828, National Gallery of Ireland), in which the thirteenth-century Church of St. Mary and St. Eanswythe is clearly visible above the town, is a particularly useful work against which to judge O’Connor’s ostensibly topographical view. O’Connor was both an accomplished and pragmatic figure painter, who regularly introduced the same figures, or variations of these, into more than one work. For example, the seated figure in this picture, attending to his nets, reappears in a view of the Lover’s Leap on the Dargle by O’Connor of 1837 (private collection).The fisherman Page 6 – Gorry Gallery
standing beside him, meanwhile, recalls figures in O’Connor’s celebrated painting The Poachers (1935, NGI). O’Connor often delighted in the rendering of small detail and texture, whether in foliage, terrain, water or costume. The firmness and rigidity of panel lent itself to such attention, and O’Connor was here meticulous in describing even the tiniest of features, from the gaiters worn by the standing fisherman and the bag over the shoulder of the diminutive figure in the field to the schooner under sail outside the harbour. Similarly impressive are O’Connor’s description of the town in the background, its russet rooftops standing out against the distant headland, and his deft rendering of the gulls wheeling over the surf. The composition, too, is familiar, calling to mind several of O’Connor’s Irish and English coastal subjects. These include A View of Howth Head (c.1819-20, private collection), A Bay Scene, Seapoint (1820, private collection), A Sea Piece (1839, private collection), and a moonlit view of Kingstown, now Dun Laoghaire (1836/7, private collection). In each, a rocky mass, most commonly cliffs, dominates one side of the painting, while a broad expanse of coast and sea characterises the other. O’Connor employed a similar compositional format in several inland scenes. He possessed an innate sense of balance and economy, expressed with notable success in this exquisitely finished and compact composition. An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings
2. James Arthur O’Connor c.1792-1841
3. James Arthur O’Connor c.1792-1841
Provenance: Private Collection France.
Provenance: Private Collection France.
‘Woodland Landscape with Woman on a path’ Oil on board 17.8 x 22.9 Signed with initials
‘River Landscape with Figures on a Path’ Oil on board 17.8 x 22.9 Signed with initials
16. Thomas Walmsley 1763-1806 ‘Coastal Scene’ Gouache on paper 49 x 69
An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings
Gorry Gallery – Page 7
24. William Magrath N.A., 1838-1918 ‘A Drop of the Crater’ Oil on panel 57 x 86.5 Signed and dated l.l. W.MAGRATH 1897
Inscribed with title painted verso partially obscured by old labels inscribed ‘A Dop [sic] of the Crater’ from life by Wm Magrath. Painted and Exhibited in New York City by Wm Magrath about 1914.’ Born in Cork, William Magrath was educated there at the Blue Coat School and The Cork School of Art. Like his compatriot Hovenden who had the same start (and whose portrait he later painted), he then immigrated to New York. After starting out there as a sign writer, he established himself as an artist, exhibiting at the National Academy of Design. He was elected there as an associate in 1873, then as an academician in 1876. Several of his figure and genre paintings feature in the Collection of The Crawford Gallery of Art in Cork, with poetic titles such as ‘Ah Rory, be Aisey, don’t tease me no more’ (1865), ‘The Seaweed Girl’ (1877) and ‘Son of the Soil’ (c.1879). These portraits demonstrate his sympathetic delineation of working country people, during his several sketching trips back to Cork and Kerry from America. Irish genre painting was already well established by then by Magrath’s contemporaries; James Brenan (18371907, whose work is represented here as lot 25) and the talented American Howard Helmick (1840-1907). Indeed Helmick was showing work simultaneously at London’s Royal Academy, when from 1880-83 Magrath showed six titles from addresses in Gower Street. Such influences, and that of the far earlier Dutch precedent in genre, can Page 8 – Gorry Gallery
be seen especially in his interiors, where he often shows people arranged against a farmhouse hearth. Much of the featured furniture reinforces the idea that he was working near Cork. The red painted parlour chairs to the right, were typical in that area. The settle bed was a high backed bench with a seat that hinged downwards to make into a floor level double bed at night. Its spacesaving form was used in farmhouses throughout Ireland since the 1640’s. In county Cork several surviving examples have recently turned up where the high back also hinges to become a large table, supported by the settle’s armrests. A similar ‘settle bed table’ is included in Magrath’s ‘Paddy’s Honeymoon’ as well as in both these paintings, which helps anchor them to Cork locations. Indeed the young man seated in that painting bears a strong resemblance to the model in ‘A Drop of the Crater’. Both wear full-fall knee breeches, braces and baínín jackets. Just as Helmick had favourite models and artefacts reappearing in his paintings, so apparently did Magrath. Under an unlined thatched roof, the broad rectangular hearth is stepped back at the top above the clevy (as the mantelpiece was known in Cork), with its door leading An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings
to the parlour that doubled as a bedroom, beyond. This type of house has the same layout as depicted in ‘Paddy’s Honeymoon’, which has the door ajar revealing ‘the room’. The old woman crouched under the hearth canopy appears in both paintings. Her white bonnet, denoting that she is married, suggests that she’s cast as a grandmother. The clevies in these two pictures display an array of the same functional household items, such as a flat iron, a tall polished jug, a teapot and a red box. On the right the same set of antlers also recurs, and suggests that the household is sufficiently affluent to shoot game, and own a gun. The distinctive shiny blue and white jug, on the table beside the whiskey barrel, features on a similar table in ‘Paddy’s Honeymoon’. On the far left of the painting is a single layered hen coop, painted red, lined with straw and raised slightly off the floor against draughts. Surviving examples had these slatted doors to confine fowl at night, and this one has been left with the slats opened upwards. On the far right, the hens peck about with the larger cockerel amongst them. Although coops were widely used indoors, they rarely appear in oil paintings: the only precedent is one in an earlier painting by James Brenan (‘Notice to Quit’, 1880). Farmers who cooped hens indoors in winter, giving them extra light and warmth, benefitted from a continuous supply of eggs. Relative affluence is suggested by this amply well-furnished kitchen. They have two tables, compared to many poor rural households that ate their meals directly from a wicker basket. The men are well heeled in their working boots, and their white, unlined baínín jackets were idiosyncratically Irish. Lines from the c.19th anonymous first verse of Finnegan’s Wake neatly explain how the Irish often referred to a tot of Whiskey; Ah but Tim had a sort of tipplin’ way, with the love of the liquor he was born. An’ to send him on his way each day, he’d a drop of the crater ev’ry morn. The old man makes a show of holding his glass up to the light falling from a window on the left, to check its clarity. Such a gesture brings to mind Sir David Wilkie’s much reproduced painting of 1840, ‘The Irish Whiskey Still’, but Magrath’s less moralistic approach focuses on the pleasure, rather than the manufacture. The younger men enjoy their clay pipes of tobacco. The confident central stance of the woman at the table suggests this may be a shebeen, where it was commonly the woman’s task to serve drinks. Arriving from the right, past the vacant chairs, a curious red headed fellow may be the next customer. ‘Cabin Comfort’ seems to feature the same elderly man, but wearing a waistcoat over his slightly torn white jacket. His tall top hat also appears in ‘A Drop…’ (where it is placed on the far left on the settle bed table). Magrath An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings
26. William Magrath N.A., 1838-1918 ‘Cabin Comfort’ Oil on canvas 41.5 x 30.5 Signed and dated l.r. W. MAGRATH 1880
Old inscription on frame verso with title ‘Cabin Comfort. Wm. Magrath 124 Gower St. W.C. London’. Exhibited: The Royal Academy, London, 1880, no. 198 from 124, Gower Street. provides us with meticulous detail of such clothing, and his attention to such minutiae as for example the distinctive peg that forms a hinge for the settle bed table, visible at the rear of the arm rest, are typical. The narrative within such authentically detailed settings invited discussion and interpretation from contemporary viewers. Other exhibited titles indicate that he bravely courted controversy by highlighting political topics, as with The Monk or The Connoisseur (collection of National Academy of Design, NY) and titles that we have yet to find, for example ‘Thinking it Over (the land question)’ (1883) and ‘Notice to Quit’ (1902). An American artist and critic, Samuel G.W. Benjamin (1837-1914) described him as ‘one of the strongest artists in genre this side of the Atlantic’ who ‘occasionally suggests the inimitable humanity which is the crowning excellence of the paintings of Jean Francois Millet’. Dr. Claudia Kinmonth M.A. (R.C.A.) Ph.D. C. Kinmonth in P. Murray ed., Whipping the Herring (Crawford Gallery Exhibition Catalogue, Cork, 2006), pp.13, 20, 22-3, 31,158-161, 202-3, 216-7 fig.159, 161, 203, 217. T. Snoddy, Dictionary of Irish Artists 20th Century (Dublin, 2002), 405-7. V. Krielkamp ed., Rural Ireland The Inside Story (McMullan Museum Exhibition Catalogue, Boston, 2012), exhib’ cat’ no. 5, p.137. C. Kinmonth, Irish Rural Interiors in Art (Yale University Press, 2006), pp. 42, 62, 68, 120-1, 149-50. Figs. 126, 148, 119.
Gorry Gallery – Page 9
25. James Brenan R.H.A., 1837-1907 ‘His only Pair’ Oil on canvas, 53.5 x 43.5 Signed and dated l.l. 1882 in monogram
Inscriptions on original label verso with his address at Buckston Hill, Sundays well, Cork, title and price £25. Exhibited: Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, 1883, number 110 at £25. Provenance: previously owned by Miss Devine, Dublin 4 ex Cynthia O’Connor Gallery, 1993 (whose label is affixed verso), where purchased by the present owner.
James Brenan was one of the foremost Irish painters of genre and narrative works of his time. When he exhibited this work at Dublin’s Royal Hibernian Academy in 1883, he was Head of the School of Art in Cork. Such salaried work freed him to paint what he liked, rather than what was commercial. Born in Dublin, he trained there at the School of Art and the R.H.A. school. Moving to London at an early age he worked under the guidance of Sir Matthew Digby Wyatt and Owen Jones, assisting in the decorating of the Pompeian and Roman Courts for The Great Exhibition of 1851. In 1852 he won the prize medal at the Government School of Design. Subsequently he devoted time to improving the quality of lace manufacture in Ireland, establishing lace schools and bringing samples from England. He exhibited regularly at Dublin’s R.H.A. and the increasing numbers of paintings that come onto the market are proof of his passion to improve the lot of the rural poor, and of families working from home. His narrative paintings revealed issues with home industries in ‘Interior with Woman Spinning’ (1876) and ‘Committee of Inspection’ (1877). The latter oil is one of several in Cork’s national collection at the Crawford Gallery. He also highlighted problems with rural education, poor literacy, eviction, arranged marriage and the sadness of emigration. Page 10 – Gorry Gallery
Here he shows a young boy beneath a canopy, with the floor level turf fire glowing to the left. Farmers commonly kept servants who lived in, or this boy may be the farmer’s son. On the far right is the wicker creel for carrying turf from the bog, and the artist has attended revealingly to its detail of a súgán or twisted straw rope handle. The lad sits on a traditional type of parlour chair, painted red in imitation of fashionable mahogany (also featuring in Magrath’s oil, ‘A Drop of The Crater’ lot 24). The flagged floor, earthenware cream separating dish and the board ended stool with its blue paintwork, indicate a ‘better sort’ of farmhouse rather than a mere cabin. The hearth has a well stocked square ‘keeping hole’ for dry storage, above the kettle, and tongs gleam against the back-stone. Dressed like a small adult, he has characteristic blue and white home knitted socks and his baggy second hand jacket is patched yet serviceable. Contemplating the sole of his worn out shoe, alluded to in the title, he may be pondering the cost of the cobbler’s attentions. One of his socks hangs on the string over the fire to dry, suggesting that shoe has let in water. Cobblers and old clothes dealers did a thriving trade throughout Ireland. Many texts reveal that shoes were a necessity for farmers who worked the land or handled stock, or for boys who worked outside. Child labour was endemic, at this time, when girls and women commonly went barefoot. Within living memory in rural Cork (where Brenan often painted) boys shared their brother’s shoes for work, or special occasions such as for Mass, often carrying them as they walked to school. Brenan’s narrative invites the well-heeled Dublin art gallery audience to discuss this detail, and that this boy was comparatively lucky with ‘His only Pair’. Brenan’s work has been increasingly appreciated recently. It featured in two major exhibitions of genre paintings in Cork ‘Whipping the Herring’ (2006) and in Boston ‘Rural Ireland the Inside Story’ (2012). From 1889-1904 he was Head of the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art, where his ‘kindness of heart and upright character, made him popular with not only his pupils but with all who knew him’. Dr Claudia Kinmonth M.A. (R.C.A.) Ph.D. C. Kinmonth in P. Murray ed., Whipping the Herring (Crawford Gallery Exhibition Catalogue, Cork, 2006), pp.20-21, 29, fig.6, 37, fig.3. T. Snoddy, Dictionary of Irish Artists 20th Century (Dublin, 2002), 48-9. V. Krielkamp ed., Rural Ireland The Inside Story (McMullan Museum Exhibition Catalogue, Boston, 2012), exhib’ cat’ nos’. 26-30. C. Kinmonth, Irish Rural Interiors in Art (Yale University Press, 2006), pp. 3, 4, 55-6, 63, 89, 93-4, 106-7, 110, 116-17, 215, 256-8, 259. Figs. 55, 87, 107, 113, 116, 124, 151, 165, 249, 250.
An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings
5. George Mounsey Wheatley Atkinson 1806-1884 ‘Brig Entering Cork Harbour’ Oil on canvas 60.5 x 91 Signed and dated “G Atkinson 1842”
One of the finer works by George Mounsey Wheatley Atkinson to have come to light in recent years, Brig Entering Cork Harbour depicts several vessels, including a brig, a schooner and a yacht, under sail near the entrance to Cork Harbour. The brig flies a blue ensign, while the yacht immediately to the right has a red ensign flying from its gaff. In the distance are visible two steamships and a large sailing ship in the distance is silhouetted against the horizon. Visible on the extreme right, a third steam ship is transporting troops, probably to Spike Island. The view is taken looking south, with Fort Carlisle on the left and Fort Camden on the right, the two fortifications guarding the shipping lane into the harbour. To the extreme right is visible part of Spike Island, with a flag flying over its star-shaped fortification and barracks. The buoy in front of the brig indicates the Spit Bank, a shallow part of the harbour. Atkinson has depicted the harbour in weather conditions very typical of Cork; patches of blue sky peep through white cumulus clouds, while darker clouds at a lower altitude promise imminent rain. The sea is slightly choppy, with a patch of bright sunlight illuminating the waves in front of the brig. The setting and lighting add greatly to the painting’s dramatic effect. A sailor himself and largely self-taught as an artist, Atkinson depicted weather conditions as he saw them, rather than through the systematized method taught in art academies of the period. As a consequence, his paintings are quite unlike conventional maritime views, and are full of spirit, a keen knowledge of sailing craft and their rigging, and an awareness of how weather conditions affect the sea. As with the majority of Atkinson’s paintings, this canvas probably depicts an event the artist would An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings
have considered newsworthy. However, without documentary information it is difficult to establish what that event was. Some details indicate it may represent a yacht race. In the forecastle of the brig are assembled a group of passengers, several of them women wearing brightly-coloured bonnets. The fact that the brig is flying a blue ensign is significant, as this was normally reserved for the Royal Navy’s Blue Squadron and the vessel in the painting is clearly not a warship. Very few merchant vessels were permitted to fly the blue ensign, but an Admiralty warrant authorising the use of this flag by the Royal Yacht Squadron was issued in 1842, the date of this painting. The sailing vessel to the right of the brig is flying a red pennant, or burgee, indicating that it is a yacht of the Royal Cork Yacht Club. Behind the brig, a schooner, also flying a red burgee, is under full sail and also heading in to the harbour. A third yacht is visible in the distance, under Fort Carlisle. The painting may therefore depict a brig bringing members and guests of the Royal Yacht Squadron to Cork, to see a race between rival vessels of the local yacht club. The long boom, or pole, projecting out from the taffrail of the brig, would have been used to transship goods or even passengers. It is of course possible that the painting depicts a typical melee of mixed shipping in Cork Harbour, with passengers being brought in to land, having been transferred from the large ocean-going sailing ship seen departing into the distance. Whatever the scene depicted, Brig Entering Cork Harbour is an excellent example of Atkinson’s work and an addition to the constantly growing number of works now identified by this prolific and talented marine painter. Peter Murray Gorry Gallery – Page 11
37. Nevill Johnson 1911-1999 ‘Kilkeel’ c.1946 Oil on canvas 40 x 61 Signed
The small series of paintings by Nevill Johnson to which ‘Kilkeel’ belongs were painted in reaction to the Second World War, but express a more profound consciousness of the fears and despair of the atomic age and are arguably among the most important and ambitious works painted in Ireland in the post-war period. These works are located at the edge of land and sea, the shoreline that was the site of so much psychic exploration in surrealist art. While nothing man-made appears to remain on the land, the terrain is dominated by forms that seem to have emerged from the sea or to belong to an uncertain half-way point between the two. Johnson collected driftwood, shells and stones from the shores of Lough Neagh and the appearances of the most appropriate of these were then transcribed into his paintings, suggesting a struggle between these biomorphic forms into which human and animal life has been mutated by some apocalyptic event. This is the existential psychological landscape of the post-war world, illuminated in a mysterious, nocturnal glow. There is an interesting comparison with Francis Bacon in the blurred profile of the left-hand ‘head’ of the large driftwood form. While these paintings are witty, elegant and brilliantly crafted, recalling in their precision Johnson’s early friendship with John Luke, they also express his anger at the “lies and violent rhetoric” of war, as well as his own sense of spiritual and emotional desolation at a time when he was about to leave his first wife and a secure job to embark on a career as an artist and to live in Dublin. This painting was included in the first group of work Johnson exhibited with Victor Waddington in 1947; more than a decade after he first moved to Belfast and began to paint, Johnson quickly found success and recognition in Dublin. Page 12 – Gorry Gallery
An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings
4. Joseph Malachy Kavanagh R.H.A. 1856-1919 ‘Whispering Leaves and Wandering Sheep’ Oil on canvas 57 x 78 Signed
Exhibited: Royal Hibernian Academy 1905, Number 273 Provenance: Cynthia O’Connor Gallery ‘Recent Acquisitions’ May 1991, Catalogue Number 6, where, purchased by the present owner.
14. John Brett A.R.A. 1830-1902
‘Glendalough, from the seven churches, County Wicklow, Ireland’ Oil on board 38 x 60 Signed, inscribed and dated 1855
Provenance: Jasper Brett; Brixie Jarvis London Pre-Raphaelite Landscape Painter, much admired by Ruskin. A frequent exhibitor at the Royal Academy for some forty years, his highly detailed paintings displaying great beauty and observation. An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings
Gorry Gallery – Page 13
22. Daniel MacDonald, 1821-1853
‘Returning from an Irish Funeral’ Pen and ink on paper 33 x 42 Signed and dated, Cork, December 14th, 1842
Exhibited: Crawford Art Gallery, Cork, May 4-August 26, 2006 Literature: ‘Whipping the Herring’, Survival and Celebration in Nineteenth-Century Irish Art, p.p.150-151 (Illustrated). This spirited sketch depicts mourners, evidently in cheerful spirits, returning from a funeral. Some walk, others are on horseback, while a few, including a smiling barefoot boy, have hitched a ride on the empty hearse. A small two-wheeled cart, the hearse bounces over the rough ground, pulled by a horse, on which sits a small boy. A dog runs alongside, while chickens take fright. A group of riders accompany the hearse, raising clouds of dust. In the foreground, pigs look up unconcerned at the commotion, while, in the distance, a round tower rises above a ruined church. Born in Cork, Daniel MacDonald, the son of James MacDonald (or McDaniel), followed his father as a painter of portraits, genre scenes and caricatures. The young MacDonald excelled in depicting sporting events and other entertainments of town and countryside. At the age of thirteen, his etchings were published in a local paper, The Tribute. He sketched the hedge-school master with quill pen, the dancing master with pumps flying, and the redcoated gentlemen of the South Union Hunt on horseback. He also painted one of the only canvases depicting the Famine in Ireland, An Irish Peasant Family Discovering the Blight of their Store, which was exhibited in London in 1847 and is now in the Delargy Centre for Irish Folklore in UCD. In 1842, MacDonald exhibited four works at the Cork Art Union exhibition: Still life with Oysters, A Hare, The Fairy Blast (Delargy Centre, UCD) and Bowling Match at Castlemary Cloyne (Crawford Art Gallery). Other paintings by MacDonald in the Crawford include The Wedding Page 14 – Gorry Gallery
Dance and The Eviction. The year 1842 was a busy time for MacDonald; Strickland records that the twenty-one year old artist, ‘while living with his parents in Patrick Street, Cork,’ sent four works to the R.H.A., while Crookshank and Glin refer to another work by MacDonald, painted the previous year, The Eagle’s Nest, Killarney. After 1844, MacDonald moved to London, where he continued to produce sketch portraits, including Lord Brougham and Vaux, Lord Chancellor (British Museum) and Edward Jesse, (National Portrait Gallery, London). Although a prolific artist, MacDonald did not live beyond his thirty-second year, dying of fever in 1853. In addition to oil paintings, MacDonald produced many pen and ink drawings, a number of which, including one relating to A Fairy Blast, were acquired by the British Museum in 1903. That collection also includes The Cork Watchman (1840), and several views in Kerry. Returning Home after an Irish Funeral is a quintessential MacDonald sketch, and can be related to a group of similarly zestful drawings of rural scenes, acquired by the Crawford Art Gallery in 2012. These include The Hedge School Master and his Gorsoons, Preparing for Mass, Soul Beggars and “Peace was Made for Coward Souls: War, my boys, for you & me” a sketch depicting a recruiting party in a country town. More so than his contemporary Maclise, MacDonald relished the positive aspects of social life in Ireland and his portrayals of ordinary people bear no hint of satire or condescension. Neither is his work sentimentalised or idealised. Peter Murray An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings
21. John Rocque, c.1705-62 A View of Kildare, c.1757 Pen and wash on paper, 34 x 52
Inscribed: ‘A South View of Kildare taken from Tully Road’ One of the most remarkable works of art of eighteenth century Ireland was the series of eight volumes of estate maps by the Huguenot John Rocque which surveyed the 68,000 acre estate of James, 20th Earl of Kildare. In addition to their cartographic excellence – and the fine Irish bindings which house the maps – the volumes are among the finest depictions of the Irish landscape to survive from the middle of the eighteenth century. As Patrick Duffy writes: ‘Rocque’s maps of the Earl of Kildare’s estates come closest to artistic portrayals of the landscapes. They were unprecedented in the manner in which the landscapes of fields and hedges, houses, gardens, villages were portrayed. . . The quality of the artistic display in the maps and their margins sets them apart from anything produced whether before or after.(1) Arnold Horner sets the project in the wider context noting how Rocque: ‘was the nearest cartographic equivalent to the decorators, the Francini, or the architect Richard Castle. For the Earl, the estate survey was only one of a series of “improving” projects but for Irish cartography it represents an innovation with consequences comparable to those in Irish architecture which followed the building of Castletown in the 1720s’.(2) Rocque’s volumes of maps were sold from Carton in November 1963 and are now split between the British Library, Trinity College Dublin, Cambridge University Library, the National Library of Ireland, Yale and a private collection. If they are unique in being the only surviving manuscript maps by Rocque, an even rarer survival is the present drawing which is preparatory to the vignette showing Kildare town in the Survey of the Manor of Kildare of 1757 (TCD). It is an invaluable record An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings
of how Roque worked as it is markedly different from the final view in its elaborate rocaille cartouche (illustrated in Hodge, 2001, p. 134). In the TCD manuscript while the view of the town is the same – with its landmark Round Tower – the foreground is completely different and it seems likely that the drawing was executed, in part at least, sur le motif. A similar scene of mapmakers going about their job with chain and theodolite appears in Rocque’s Title Cartouche for the Survey of Tullagorey in the Manor Of Athy. In a letter of 1972 to the previous owners Hugh Cobbe of the British Library wrote: ‘It has proved to be of great interest and can be ascribed with certainty to John Rocque. . . There are some interesting differences between the study and the final cartouche. The surveyors are replaced by a horse and cart; there are more cows and also a hay-making scene in the field in the foreground. . . However the basic essentials, and in particular the view of Kildare in the background, are unmistakably the same. What is of interest is that these eight volumes of estate maps together with a single map of the demesne of Carton. . . are the only manuscript maps of Rocque known to exist. It seems likely that your drawing is the only drawing by Rocque that is known’. It is indeed a great rarity, in the history of Irish cartographical and topographical art. 1. Patrick Duffy, Exploring the History and Heritage of the Irish Landscape (Dublin 2008) 188. See also Anne Hodge, ‘The Practical and the Decorative, The Kildare Estate Maps of John Rocque’, in Irish Arts Review, Vol. 17 (2001) 133-40; William Laffan, ‘Some Curious Maps, A Rococo Idyll in County Kildare’, in Peter Murray (ed.), [C]artography, Map-Making as Artform, Exhibition Catalogue, Crawford Art Gallery, (Cork, 2007) 31-34. 2. Arnold Horner, ‘Cartouches and Vignettes in the Kildare estate mpas of John Rocque’, in Quarterly Bulletin of the Irish Georgian Society, 14, (1971) 58.
Gorry Gallery – Page 15
Hugh Douglas Hamilton 1740-1808 A group of pastel portraits Each measuring 23 x 19 approximately
7. The Countess of Farnham
8. Denis Daly of Dunsandle
11. Portrait of Elizabeth, Countess of Arran
10. Portrait of Robert Maxwell, 1st Earl of Farnham Clockwise from top left: 7. The Countess of Farnham née Henrietta Cantillon Provenance: By descent in the family. 8. Denis Daly of Dunsandle County Galway (MP and Speaker of the House of Commons) A version of this drawing is in the National Gallery of Ireland, see Anne Hodge (ed.), Hugh Douglas Hamilton (1740-1808) A Life in Pictures (Dublin 2008) p.62. Daly was the son-in-law of Lord and Lady Farnham. Provenance: By descent in the family. Page 16 – Gorry Gallery
9. Portrait of a Lady 9. Portrait of a Lady (early inscription on verso identifies the sitter as a member of the Aislebie family. 10. Portrait of Robert Maxwell, 1st Earl of Farnham, husband of (see Catalogue No. 7) and father-in-law of (see Catalogue No. 8) 11. [Centre], Portrait of Elizabeth, Countess of Arran Provenance: Dowager Lady Napier and Ettrick, Duke of Sussex, sold Christie’s 10 May 1899 (44) with several labels on verso including Ellen’s Print Warehouse, Dublin. An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings
192 mm
6. Francis Wheatley R.A. 1747-1801
‘Donnybrook Fair’ Pencil and watercolour on paper 44 x 63.3 Signed and dated F. Wheatley delt./1783
George Barret (detail).
Painted in the year that Grattan’s parliament finally achieved legislative independence for Ireland (a process already famously celebrated by Wheatley in his view of the House of Commons with Grattan on his feet of 1780, (Leeds Museums and Galleries, Lotherton Hall), this accomplished watercolour is one of a series that the artist made of everyday life in Ireland and specifically of the famous Donnybrook Fair. Wheatley was something of a pioneer in sketching the humble lives of the ordinary people of Ireland, as was recognised at the time in the biography of James Gandon by his son who noted how after a disappointing reaction to the House of Commons picture Wheatley gave up portraiture and instead ‘adopted other subjects, and commenced painting small pictures of Irish scenery in which he introduced a variety of figures’. Noting how ‘his first essays were from Donnybrook and Palmerstown fairs’, Gandon Junior compares these to the seventeenth-century Dutch artist Philips Wouwerman – then highly thought of – adding how he ‘succeeded in delineating the characters of the peasantry.’ Wheatley’s work is noticeably lacking in the element of caricature that pervades later depictions of Donnybrook Fair by artists such as Samuel Watson. In late 1783, or early the following year, Wheatley returned to London. The fruits of his time in Ireland were clearly apparent at the R.A. summer show the following year and included a View of the Salmon Leap at Leixlip (presumably the picture in Yale) and a view of Donnybrook. Wheatley also included a view of Donnybrook in an auction of his drawings at Christie’s in May 1784. An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings
Gorry Gallery – Page 17
spine
210 + 207 + 192 = 609 mm
fold
12. George Barret R.A. Dublin 1728-1784
‘A River Landscape with a Rainbow and Anglers and a Rustic Cottage by a Waterfall’ Oil on canvas, 92 x 145 Provenance: Collection of Mrs. B.P. Ball Leger Galleries, London Exhibited: English Pictures for the Country House, London, May-June 1986 Catalogue Number 11, where purchased by the present owner
Rainbows, characterised as ‘accidents of nature’, were associated by eighteenth-century theorists such as Jonathan Richardson and Sir Joshua Reynolds with the Northern School of landscape painting. Richardson linked them specifically with Rubens who, he noted, ‘loves to enrich his landscape with certain accidents of nature, [such] as winds, a rain-bow, lightning, &c’ – Richardson was thinking of paintings such as the famous landscape with a rainbow now in the Wallace Collection, London.1 For Reynolds, however, the inclusion of such atmospheric effects would categorise – and indeed condemn – a landscape painter as being Dutch-inspired and so incapable of attaining the absolute truths which Reynolds saw as the sole preserve of the seicento Roman School: ‘It is certain Claude Lorrain seldom, if ever, availed himself of those accidents.’2 Theoretical distinctions and rigid definitions of the Dutch and Italian Schools were less important to the young George Barret in Dublin than to the learned Reynolds in London and it seems rather more likely that he found inspiration for his depiction of the rainbow in the Irish countryside, and not in the art of the past. Rainbows had long been associated with the mutability of the Irish climate. This was noted by Richard Twiss in 1775: ‘The climate of Ireland is more moist than that of any other part of Europe, it generally rains four or five days in the week, for a few hours at a time; thus rainbows are seen almost daily’.3 Other Irish artists, notably Thomas Roberts Page 18 – Gorry Gallery
also, on occasion, included a rainbow in their paintings. Roberts’ landscape with a rainbow (Fota House, County Cork) is among his appealing paintings while in 1769 Roberts’s teacher George Mullins exhibited a landscape with ‘the effect of a rainbow’ at the Society of Artists in Dublin. One further example of a rainbow landscape by Barret is in a private collection and Edmund Burke had written to James Barry how their mutual friend Barret was ‘a wonderful observer of the accidents of nature’ – exactly the same phase Richardson and Reynolds used.4 While other examples of British portrayals of the rainbows can be instanced – from Ibbetson’s Beeston Castle (Nottingham Castle) to most famously Constable’s Salisbury Cathedral (private collection on loan to National Gallery, London), these tend to show a magnificent arch, an almost architectural feature in the sky. Here instead in this ambitious work almost certainly dating from the end of his period in Ireland, Barret – like Roberts – gives but a hint of the rainbow, its fleeting impermanence as it collide with the spray of the cascade being as much the subject as the beauty of its prismatic colouring. William Laffan 1. Quoted Leslie Parris, Landscape Painting in Britain, Exhibition Catalogue, Tate Gallery (London 1973) p.15; William Laffan and Brendan Rooney, Thomas Roberts, Landscape Painting and Patronage in Eighteenth-Century Ireland (Tralee, 2009) 236-40. 2. Quoted Parris, Landscape Painting, p.15 3. Richard Twiss, A Tour of Ireland in 1775 (London 1776) 33. 4. James Barry, (Edward Fryer ed), The Works of James Barry, 2 vols (London 1809) vol. 1, 89.
An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings
An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings
Gorry Gallery – Page 19
The works on pages 21-25 are exhibited in association with Dickon Hall and Denys Wilcox.
45. Pablo Picasso 1881-1973 ‘Nu Accroupi’ Drawn in 1902 Ink on paper 15.75 x 11.75
Literature: Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso: Catalogue of Works, 1885-1972, Volume VI, catalogue number 459 With a certificate from Claude Picasso Drawn in late 1901 or the early months of 1902, Nu Accroupi is a remarkable document from the crucial first year of Picasso’s blue period. Not only does it already demonstrate the stylistic resolution and thematic concentration of this period, but it also reveals much of his process at this time. There are clear similarities between the model in the present drawing and Germaine Pichot, who became a lover of Picasso’s after she had rejected his friend Casagemas and driven him to suicide.(1) Her heavily sensuous features are exaggerated here but there are indications in this drawing of the degree to which her appearance shaped the female archetype that recurs throughout the blue period. Certainly her role in the death of Casagemas and the ambivalence of her sexual attractiveness and voraciousness were crucial to the creation of a female type that expressed the essence of the blue period, vulnerable yet with a fragile beauty, preyed on by society yet also with the potential to prey on others. John Richardson also mentions that “an attractive nude girl with long black hair appears in several drawings done in the course of the summer”,(2) which Picasso spent in Barcelona, although he suggests this was unlikely to be another infatuation of Picasso’s in 1902, La Bella Chelito, who might also have contributed to the evolution of this blue period archetype. Picasso’s friend Sabartès described her body as “ardent and supple, undulant, voluptuous”,(3) which certainly could describe this figure. The present drawing is dated to 1902 by Zervos, which might suggest her presence, but it is interesting to note the similarity of both style and sitter in a drawing dated 1901 by Picasso, Woman in Profile, suggesting the possibility that the drawing may have been made in Paris in that year using Germaine as either model or direct inspiration. The present drawing not only relates to two of Picasso’s An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings
blue period muses, it also charts the artistic influences who shaped this extraordinary period of work. Nu Accroupi is closely related to Picasso’s Blue Nude of 1902 and the expressive pictorial qualities of the female back strongly recall Gauguin as well as Puvis de Chavannes. The blue period owes much to both, with its elements of pathos and darkness expressed through the hieratic beauty of the human form. There are also perhaps hints of Degas and in the expressive distortions of hands and feet we can see Picasso’s closeness to the symbolists as well as his interest in El Greco, to whom Picasso paid clear tribute in Evocation (The Burial of Casagemas) (Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris). While the Blue Nude is very close to the present work, we can also see the evolution of a pictorial idea that was to lead to the 1902 painting Two Women at a Bar (Hiroshima Museum of Art) and the pastel Au Café Concert from the same year. The potency of the image is even strikingly echoed in the left hand figure in Bathers with a Turtle (1908) (St.Louis Art Museum) by Matisse, who was so conscious of Picasso’s work. Nu Accroupi is rich is its associations and it contains much of the essence of the blue period within it. It reveals Picasso’s debt to specific models in forming the female archetype to express the themes and ideas of the period, while also acknowledging his debt to other artists; finally it points towards at least three major works of the period. In the present work we sense a young artist paying tribute to his great precursors as well as struggling to move past their achievements and begin the new century on his own terms. 1 John Richardson, ‘A Life of Picasso – Volume 1’, 1881-1906, London, Pimlico, London, 1992, p.181. 2 Richardson, ‘A Life of Picasso – Volume 1’, p.244. 3 Quoted in Richardson, p.244.
Gorry Gallery – Page 21
Édouard Vuillard 1868-1940
Four studies towards ‘Le Télégramme’ All works are pencil on paper, drawn c.1933-35 11.4 x 18.5, with the estate stamp
Provenance: Ian Woodner Family Collection, New York ‘Le Télégramme’ is a large and highly resolved pastel by Vuillard showing his close friend Lucy Hessel with her daughter Lulu in their apartment in the rue de Naples. This series of preparatory studies reveal the depth of Vuillard’s process and his detailed examination of all aspects of the work, from the ambiguous psychological drama between the two figures to the details of the rich furnishings of the apartment.
47. Paul Cézanne 1839-1906
‘Studies of Madame Cézanne and Le Petit Paul’ Pencil on paper 23 x 21 Probably drawn circa 1878-82 Provenance: Sir Kenneth Clark, London; Leicester Galleries, London, 1946; Gismond Visgani, Whitford Fine Art, London; Aguttes, Paris, 25th June 2007, Lot 239 Literature: Lionello Venturi, ‘Cézanne, son art, son oeuvre’, Paris, 1936, Volume I, recorded under number 1472.
The subject matter and arrangement of the three studies on the present sheet are typical of the intimacy and immediacy of many of Cézanne’s drawings and also demonstrate the manner in which he drew and evolved pictorial ideas from the domestic life taking place around him. Many sheets in Cézanne’s sketchbooks were used for a number of different studies and the three drawings here are all independent, with the scale and angle of each slightly varied. Both head studies have an informal air, with the subjects’ gazes directed away from the artist. These are the two central figures in Cézanne’s life, Hortense Fiquet, whom he would marry in 1886, and their son Paul, born in 1872, both immensely important as subjects for the artist. The third study on the sheet is similar to a later (c.189092) watercolour of a coat on a chair and it is intriguing to speculate whether this carefully volumetric drawing of drapery is in fact the artist’s coat and is supposed to suggest his presence, completing this subtle and affectionate description of his domestic life. Page 22 – Gorry Gallery
39. Studies of Lucie Hessel and detail of a cushion
40. Studies of cushions and saucers
41. Interior – Reflections in two mirrors, with a lampshade
42. Studies of frames An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings
48. Édouard Vuillard 1868-1940
‘The Balcony At The Closerie Des Genêts, Vaucresson’ c.1920 Pastel on paper 22.5 x 29 With artist estate stamp lower right
Provenance: Jacques Salomon; Estorick Grosvenor, London; Michael and Dorothy Blankfort, California, by 1960 Exhibited: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Michael and Dorothy Blankfort Collection, 1982, catalogue number 171 Literature: Antoine Salomon and Guy Cogeval, Vuillard: The Inexhaustible Glance: Critical Catalogue of Paintings and Pastels, Paris, 2003, Volume III, catalogue XI-10, illustrated p.1304 The Closerie des Genêts was a house the Vuillard family rented at Vaucresson for a number of summer holidays between 1917 and 1925.(1) A number of works were painted here and inspired by the house and its surroundings, most notably Verdure (1918, Art Institute of Chicago) and Le Balcon à la Closerie des Genêts, Vaucresson (c.1920, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis). The present work is one of a number of pastels in which the composition is dominated by the balcony, recalling the pictorial and symbolic importance of windows in Vuillard’s Paris paintings. The loosely described figure is likely to be Vuillard’s mother or perhaps Lucie Hessel, but the mood of the work is captured in the bright summer colours of an idyllic garden beyond the balcony. A previous owner of the work, Michael Blankfort, was a well-known American screenwriter, author and playwright; his exceptional art collection included works by de Kooning, Gorky and Yves Klein. 1 Antoine Salomon and Guy Cogeval, Vuillard: The Inexhaustible Glance: Critical Catalogue of Paintings and Pastels, Paris, 2003, Volume III, p.1296.
An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings
Gorry Gallery – Page 23
46. Henri Matisse 1869-1954
‘Reclining Nude’, c.1929 Pencil on paper 24.5 x 32 Signed lower right, ‘Henri Matisse’
Provenance: Private Collection, Paris Madame Wanda de Guébriant has kindly confirmed that this work is recorded in the artist’s archives under the reference number W 207
Albert Kostenevich writes, “In all his drawings Matisse’s main aim was to achieve the utmost simplicity. . . Matisse’s drawings are immediately arresting both through their bewitching simplicity and the virtuosity and conviction with which the lines control the white rectangle of the paper. . . When we approach Matisse’s work we have a strong sense of the swiftness of his movement. . . We can sense the creation of the drawing, for each feature retains the energy of the creative gesture.”(1) 1 Albert Kostenevich, ‘French Art Treasures at the Hermitage’, Harry N. Abrams, New York, 1999, pp.376-77.
44. Pierre Bonnard 1867-1947
‘Femme Nue Allongée’ Drawn c.1902 Charcoal on paper 32.5 x 50 Stamped with monogram, lower right
Exhibited: Galerie Claude-Bernard, Paris, ‘Bonnard Dessins’, 1972, cat. 62 (illus.); Neffe-Degandt Fine Art, London, ‘Pierre Bonnard – Paintings, Watercolours, Drawings, Prints’, 18/2 – 9/4 1998 (illus.) Provenance: Neffe-Degandt Fine Art, London With a copy of the original photo certificate from Antoine Terrasse Page 24 – Gorry Gallery
Antoine Terrasse, Bonnard’s grand-nephew and biographer, suggests that this drawing is related to Bonnard’s illustrations for Paul Verlaine’s collection of poems Parallèlement.(1) The artist was commissioned by Ambroise Vollard and this is generally recognised as the first modern livre de peintre as well as one of the most successful of the many illustrated books published by Vollard. The sensuous and evocative nature of the drawing mirrors the tone of Verlaine’s poems as well as recalling a number of Bonnard’s paintings from this period such as L’Indolente (1899, Musée d’Orsay, Paris) and Nude with Black Stockings (1900, Private Collection on loan to Sheffield City Art Galleries). It is also interesting to compare the drawing to Bonnard’s illustrations for Daphnis et Chloé. 1 ‘Note on reverse of photo-certificate from Antoine Terrasse.’
An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings
43. Édouard Vuillard 1868-1940
‘Self-Portrait – The Vuillard Family’ c.1902-4 Oil on card 25.7 x 32.2 Stamped with the artist’s signature
Provenance: Alex Maguy, Galerie de l’Elysée, Paris; Private Collection, Zurich, c.1964 Exhibited: Zurich, Kunsthaus, 1964, catalogue number 160; Vuillard/Sickert, Queen’s University, Belfast, 2012 Literature: Vuillard: Le regard innombrable: Catalogue critique des peintures et pastels, A. Salomon and G. Cogeval, Paris, 2003, Volume II, catalogue VII-169, illustrated p.629 Vuillard painted a small number of self-portraits and in the majority of them he appears on his own, isolated from the small group of family and friends he documented regularly. The present painting is extremely rare in its subject, a self-portrait in which Vuillard also detaches himself from his own self-representation to explore his role in relation to the two women who dominated much of his life, his sister and his mother, whose complex relationship is scrutinised in his work.
a married woman, yet Marie seems constrained between her mother and her brother, as if in trying to assert herself she is becoming suffocated. Madame Vuillard is a shadowy figure, almost vanishing into the patterned clothing that plays such a metaphorical role in Vuillard’s art. While this third figure has not previously been identified, in terms of the narrative and dynamic of the painting, as well as the specific elements of her appearance, it can only be the artist’s mother.
The honesty of the painting is remarkable. Vuillard creates a claustrophobic and psychologically charged interior world, where the elusive Madame Vuillard at first appears to have loosened her control over her married daughter and her professionally successful son; however the picture subtly suggests that Marie remains the intimidated girl we know from the paintings of the early 1890s. Vuillard and she appear distanced. This depiction of Madame Vuillard is little more than a distinctive profile and a cleverly realised accumulation of marks describing her clothing and cap, but as we look more at the painting her power is slowly revealed.
The sitters occupy a shallow space that tilts forward and is held in awkward balance by the sketchily described room behind them, with its curtains, the patterned wall and a small marble-topped table with objects visible behind the artist’s right shoulder. Vuillard’s hands are clasped on his knee, setting up a pictorial link with his sister which is negated by everything else in the painting. Tonally, Vuillard and his mother are related while Marie is left isolated; the artist appears to be looking across her and towards his mother. Despite the apparent solidity of her pose, Marie is claustrophobically hemmed in between the closeness of mother and son. As one of the very few paintings in which Vuillard took on this intensely private subject, this exceptionally restrained and subtle self-portrait almost suggests a reluctance to put these facts down in such a permanent manner; the minimum is described but each element of the painting retains enormous emotional truth and force.
In The Vuillard Family, Marie has adopted a pose reminiscent of her mother in Interior – Mother and Sister of the Artist (1893, Museum of Modern Art, New York) and in Mother and Daughter Against a Red Background (1891), yet the effect here is quite different. By now she has become An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings
Gorry Gallery – Page 25
49. Striped Landscape 1893
Etching 9 x 19 Stamped with the artist’s initials No. IV/V in the 1964 Malingue edition (Field 34)
50. Breton Girl c.1895
50. Armand Seguin 1869-1903 Armand Seguin was part of the group of experimental artists working in Brittany in the late 1880s and 1890s, who became known as the Pont Aven Group. Seguin was born in Brittany but appears to have trained in Paris and first saw Gauguin’s work in an exhibition in 1889. His first known work in Brittany was made in 1891 and that year he also began to make prints. (1) Printmaking dominated Seguin’s work and this appears to have helped form his strong connection with Roderic O’Conor. In the summer of 1893 they worked together in Le Pouldu, an isolated Breton fishing village, where their highly experimental prints, dominated by a rhythmic use of line, were probably printed on a small press. Roy Johnston states that their “collaboration led to the production of a series of prints which have a unique place within the context of late 19th Century printmaking in France, and within the School of Pont-Aven in particular.”(2) Seguin met Gauguin in 1894 and the latter became a significant influence as well as a close friend. Seguin’s work became more overtly symbolic and mysterious and Gauguin wrote an introduction for the younger artist’s exhibition at Le Barc de Boutteville, Paris in 1895. The two worked so closely that one print, La Femme aux Figues, has been ascribed to them both at different times.(3) Seguin and O’Conor were the two artists whom Gauguin hoped would accompany him on his return to the South Seas in 1895,(4) demonstrating his profound respect for them both. Contemporary impressions of Seguin’s prints are rare. Twenty-four of his plates were reprinted in 1964 by Maurice Malingue;(5) this series is numbered 33 out of 35 (one is from an additional edition of 5) and each sheet bears a stamp with the artist’s initials.
Etching 16.2 x 6.2 Stamped with the artist’s initials No. 33/35 in the 1964 Malingue edition (Field 82)
51. Landscape
Etching 7.8 x 10.6 Stamped with the artist’s initials No. 33/35 in the 1964 Malingue edition (Field 28)
52. Girl in a landscape leaning against a tree Etching 9 x 14 Stamped with the artist’s initials No. 33/35 in the 1964 Malingue edition (Field 52)
53. Two Seated Breton Girls
Etching 13 x 18 Stamped with the artist’s initials No. 33/35 in the 1964 Malingue edition (Field 45)
54. Nude with a Chignon
Etching 11.5 x 22 Stamped with the artist’s initials No. 33/35 in the 1964 Malingue edition (Field 21)
The numbers in brackets refer to the full cataloguing of Seguin’s graphic work; for further details, see R.S. Field, C. Strauss and S. Wagstaff, ‘The Prints of Armand Seguin, 1869-1903’, Davison Art Center, Middletown, Connecticut, 1980)
1 See Caroline Boyle-Turner, ‘Gauguin and the School of Pont-Aven’, London, Royal Academy of Arts and Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1989 p.96. 2 Roy Johnston, ‘The Prints of Roderic O’Conor’, Musée de Pont-Aven, 1999, p.7. 3 See Boyle-Turner, ‘Gauguin and the School of Pont-Aven’, pp.135-136. 4 Roy Johnston, ‘Roderic O’Conor’, Barbican Art Gallery, London, and Ulster Museum, Belfast, 1985, p.45. 5 Boyle-Turner, ‘Gauguin and the School of Pont-Aven’, p.100.
Page 26 – Gorry Gallery
An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings
Measurements in centimetres, height precedes width.
Gallery I 1.
James Arthur O’Connor c.1792-1841
2.
James Arthur O’Connor c.1792-1841
3.
James Arthur O’Connor c.1792-1841
4.
Joseph Malachy Kavanagh R.H.A. 1856-1919
Illustrated page 6
15. David Woodlock 1842-1929 ‘Cottage at Clifton Hampden’ Watercolour on paper 35 x 25 Signed
Illustrated page 7
Illustrated page 7
Illustrated page 13
5.
George Mounsey Wheatley Atkinson 1806-1884 Illustrated page 11
6.
Francis Wheatley R.A. 1747-1801
7.
Hugh Douglas Hamilton 1740-1808
8.
Hugh Douglas Hamilton 1740-1808
9.
Hugh Douglas Hamilton 1740-1808
Illustrated page 17
Illustrated page 16
Illustrated page 16
Illustrated page 16
10. Hugh Douglas Hamilton 1740-1808 Illustrated page 16
11. Hugh Douglas Hamilton 1740-1808 Illustrated page 16
12. George Barret R.A. 1728-1784 Illustrated page 18
13. Walter Frederick Osborne R.H.A. 1859-1903
Illustrated Front Cover (detail) and pages 2, 3, 4
14. John Brett A.R.A. 1830-1902
Born near Golden, County Tipperary, he studied in Liverpool, where he became a member of the Academy and was a founder of the Liverpool Sketching Club. He exhibited in London from 1880, his main subjects being gardens, cottages, portraits and genre scenes. He also exhibited at the Guildhall Exhibition of Works by Irish Painters, London, 1904.
16. Thomas Walmsley 1763-1806 Illustrated page 7
17. Sarah Cecilia Harrison H.R.H.A. 1863-1941 Illustrated page 5
Illustrated page 13
An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings
Gorry Gallery – Page 27
18. Sarah Cecilia Harrison H.R.H.A. 1863-1941 ‘Study of a Man’ Drypoint etching on paper 28 x 23 Provenance: The Artist’s Family
20. Richard Doyle 1824-1883
‘Autograph letter with self-portrait from the artist to Mrs. Edward Grubb, addressed from 17, Cambridge Terrace, Hyde Park, London, c.1843’ Pen and ink on paper 15 x 11 At the head of the page is a delightful drawing of the harassed artist at his desk with easels behind him. Doyle says he is “sorry not to have been able to go to Weybridge before this, but Mr. Leech being ill Mr. Punch expects me to do his work as well as my own, for the next number, and this has kept me longer than I expected, and will probably prevent my going until Friday or Saturday. The only consolation is that the weather has not hitherto been exactly suited to open air sketching. Very Sincerely Yours Richard Doyle”
Gallery II 19. Daniel Maclise 1806-1870
‘Portrait of a Gentleman’ Pencil on paper 27 x 23 Identified verso as Walter Buchanan Signed with a monogram and dated 1830 Dating from three years after Maclise moved to London in the summer of 1827 this is one of a series of very fine pencil drawings, mostly of friends, such as Crofton Croker and the young Benjamin Disraeli. Maclise remarkable ability at capturing a likeness was noticed by William McGinn, another Corkman in London and editor of Fraser’s Magazine who in 1830, the date of our drawing, commissioned Maclise to provide portrait sketches of the magazine’s authors. In total he contributed 80 drawings. The Dictionary of National Biography praised these early drawings as characterised by ‘great spirit and truth, with wonderful technical skill, and great variety of ideas’. The sitter, identified as Walter Buchanan, may be a maternal relative as his mother was born Rebecca Buchanan. Illustrated inside front cover
Page 28 – Gorry Gallery
21. John Rocque, c.1705-1762 Illustrated page 15
22. Daniel MacDonald 1821-1853 Illustrated page 14
An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings
23. William Sadler II c.1782-1839 ‘Interior with Figures Merrymaking’ Oil on wood 20.5 x 31.5
28. Lady Kate Dobbin 1868-1955
‘Sunlit Yard’ Watercolour on card 29.5 x 23 Signed Flower and landscape painter in watercolour. Wife of Sir Alfred Graham Dobbin, High Sheriff of Cork and owner of the Imperial Hotel. She studied at the Crawford Municipal School of Art and was a frequent exhibitor at the R.H.A. and the Watercolour Society of Ireland for some 50 years
24. William Magrath 1838-1918 Illustrated page 8
25. James Brenan R.H.A. 1837-1907 Illustrated page 10
26. William Magrath 1838-1918 Illustrated page 9
27. Harry Jones Thaddeus R.H.A. 1860-1929 ‘Portrait of a Young Lady’ Oil on wood 25.5 x 17.8 Signed
William Day II 1797-1845 & Louis Haghe 1806-1895
Four Views of County Kerry and County Cork Lithographs on paper 10 x 16.5 Published by Saunders and Otley, London 1839
29. ‘Darrynane Abbey, Co. of Kerry, the Seat of D. O’Connell, Esq. M.P.’
30. ‘Mines of Allihies, Co. of Cork with the Skelligs and Darrynane Bay in the Distance’ An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings
Gorry Gallery – Page 29
31. ‘Near Adrigoll – on the road from Castletown to Glengariff’ 32. ‘Sugar-Loaf Mountain Bantry Bay, Co. of Cork’ 33. Lady Kate Dobbin 1868-1955
‘The Whiteness of their Blooming’ Watercolour on card 39 x 46 Signed Exhibited: Watercolour Society of Ireland 1948 Number 31. See notes No. 28. Original Exhibition label verso
Gallery III 35. John Luke R.U.A. 1906-1975
‘Landscape Composition 1933’ Pencil on tracing paper 36 x 72 Provenance: The Artists Studio, thence to his sister, Mrs. Sadie McKee, and by descent. This drawing was the completed preparatory study for ‘Landscape Composition’, 1933, which was John Luke’s first tempera painting. This was a commission from John Hewitt, who was Keeper of Art at the Belfast Museum and Art Gallery, and the painting was reproduced in Hewitt’s 1976 book on Luke.
36. John Luke R.U.A. 1906-1975 34. David Woodlock 1842-1929
‘St Marks Square, Venice’ Watercolour on paper 26 x 18 Signed Exhibited: Walker Art Gallery, Corporation of Liverpool, Woodlock Exhibition 1929, loaned by W. Woodley Jarvis, (original exhibition label verso) (see notes no. 15)
Page 30 – Gorry Gallery
‘Portrait of a Woman’ ‘Pencil on paper 31 x 21 Provenance: The Artist’s Studio, thence to his sister, Mrs Sadie McKee, and by descent. The sitter here is likely to have been Luke’s sister Sadie, who also appears to have modelled for him in paintings such as Judith and Holofernes (1929, Armagh County Museum).
An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings
37. Nevill Johnson 1911-1999
49. Armand Seguin 1869-1903
38. Cecil Maguire R.H.A., R.U.A. b.1930
50. Armand Seguin 1869-1903
Illustrated page 12
‘Dawn Killary Harbour’ Oil on board 61 x 91.4 Signed and dated ’71 also signed and inscribed verso
Illustrated page 26
Illustrated page 26
51. Armand Seguin 1869-1903 Illustrated page 26
52. Armand Seguin 1869-1903 Illustrated page 26
53. Armand Seguin 1869-1903 Illustrated page 26
54. Armand Seguin 1869-1903 Illustrated page 26
39. Édouard Vuillard 1868-1940 Illustrated page 22
40. Édouard Vuillard 1868-1940 Illustrated page 22
41. Édouard Vuillard 1868-1940 Illustrated page 22
42. Édouard Vuillard 1868-1940 Illustrated page 22
43. Édouard Vuillard 1868-1940 Illustrated page 25
Catalogue Numbers 55 - 69 on the following pages are works by Contemporary Irish Artists. Robert Ballagh b.1943 60. ‘Study for No. 61’ Francis Ledwidge’ p.34 Collage, Watercolour and Gouache Signed 62. ‘Brendan Behan’ Oil on canvas 28 x 30 Signed
Cover illustration for History Ireland, November Edition 2014
44. Pierre Bonnard 1867-1947 Illustrated page 24
45. Pablo Picasso 1881-1973 Illustrated page 21
46. Henri Matisse 1869-1954 Illustrated page 24
47. Paul Cézanne 1839-1906 Illustrated page 22
48. Édouard Vuillard 1868-1940 Illustrated page 23
An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings
Gorry Gallery – Page 31
Ann Griffin-Bernstorff
55. ‘Hares and the White Hound’ Oil on canvas 61 x 106.6 – Signed
The inspiration for this picture derives from the work of the celebrated American naïve painter Edward Hicks 1780-1849, who portrayed hostile animals at peace together in harmonious pose.
Chronology
Education National College of Art and Design, Dublin Yves Brayer Atelier, Grand Chaumiere, Paris Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris The RDS Taylor Art Scholarship, 1962 and 1963 James Gorry Senior’s Restoration Studio Selected Exhibitions 2012-2014 Group exhibitions at the Peppercanister Gallery and several portrait commissions 2011 Solo exhibitions of oil paintings at St. Germain de Prés, Paris 2006-2010 Work on the creation of the cartoons for the famous ROS Tapestry (15 oil paintings on canvas 4½ x 6 ft each) 2005-2006 Peppercanister Gallery: Spring, Summer and Christmas Group Shows 2004-2006 Philip Carton Fine Art, New Ross 2004-2006 Wexford Opera Festival exhibition, Brandon House Hotel, New Ross 1998 Portal Gallery, London – Group Show 1997 Solo Exhibition, Chicago 1994 Art International, New York, New York 1993 Art Miami – International Art Exposition, Miami 1992 Solo Show, Chicago, Solo Exhibition, Portal Gallery, London Page 32 – Gorry Gallery
1991 1990 1988
Art Chicago 91 – International Gallery Invitational, Chicago Solo Exhibition, Portal Gallery, London International Gallery Invitational, Chicago Portals to Portal Group Exhibition, Portal Gallery, London Gordon Gallery, Derry Wexford Arts Centre, Wexford Molesworth Gallery, Dublin
1986 1979 1966 Portraits Ninety-eight commissioned portraits including: Sir Anthony O’Reilly The McPharland Family The Fiennes Family Laura O’Donnell The Warren Family Collections National Self-Portrait Collection, Limerick University, Limerick Lambert Collection, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Kilmainham Office of Public Works; Farmleigh House, Dublin Collection of Joanna Lumley Collection of Ralph and Joseph Fiennes Publications Portal Painter, A survey of British Idiosyncratic Artists, Eric Lister, 1992. Alpine Fine Arts Collection (UK) Ltd. An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings
Kenny McKendry b.1964 56. ‘Down by the Seaside’ Oil on wood 40.5 x 70 Signed
56. ‘Down by the Seaside’ 57. ‘Kathy’ Oil on wood 23 x 18 Signed
58. ‘Returning from the home of Henry James #1’ Oil on wood 18 x 24 Signed
59. ‘Folk Singer’ Oil on wood 23 x 18 Signed
Noel Murphy b.1970 63. ‘The Authority’ Oil on canvas 76 x 61 Signed
An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings
Gorry Gallery – Page 33
61. Robert Ballagh b.1943
‘Francis Ledwidge’ Oil on canvas 58.5 x 81.5 (Triptych) Signed This Triptych by Robert Ballagh depicts, in its centre panel, Francis Ledwidge, poet and soldier of Co. Meath. He is portrayed in the uniform of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers and bearing a lance-corporal’s stripe. To the left is a brightly lit image of Slane, birthplace of the poet. It is difficult to fathom why this gentle-souled young man forsook the tranquil setting of the village he loved for the pandemonium of the western front (right panel).
He fought at Gallipoli and acquitted himself well in the scorching trenches. Following the retreat from Gallipoli he was then sent to the Serbian front where he was dug into a freezing mountain range and living on starvation rations. Ledwidge fought a rearguard action in a punishing retreat march to Salonika where he was then transferred to Cairo due to a back injury. His book of poems Songs of the Fields was published in 1915.
Ledwidge was a tall strong handsome lad who worked as a farm labourer, ganger of the roads and then worked in the copper mines at yellow furze, a job from which he was dismissed for organising a strike against bad working conditions. He came to prominence as a trade unionist and was a founder member of the Meath Labour Union. In June 1912 he sent some of his poems to Lord Dunsany (Plunkett), a local landlord who was himself a recognised poet of the Celtic Revival. Dunsany introduced Ledwidge to other contemporaries such as W.B. Yeats, Oliver St. John Gogarty and Thomas McDonagh who was later executed in the wake of the 1916 Rising. In September 1914 John Redmond made his Woodenbridge speech which encouraged Irish volunteers to join the British Army. This call was rejected by Francis Ledwidge and his brother Joe. However in October 1914 Ledwidge enlisted in Lord Dunsany’s regiment, The Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers.
In Easter 1916 Ledwidge’s former comrades in the Irish Volunteers joined forces with the Irish Citizen Army and rose up against the British occupation. The rising was bloodily suppressed and Ledwidge was devastated when his friend the poet Thomas McDonagh was shot by firing squad. Following an altercation with his Commanding Officer he was court-martialed and lost his rank of corporal. Although he was suffering from a back injury he refused to avail of this to have himself discharged from the army. In April of 1917 he found himself on the Western Front and on 31st July 1917 he was killed when a British shell fell short.
Page 34 – Gorry Gallery
We are grateful to Liam O’Meara and Gerard Humphries for their contributions to the above text. (See also exhibition numbers 60 and 62 (page 31) by Robert Ballagh) An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings
Gearóid Arthur Hayes b.1980 64. ‘Self Portrait as Cúchulain’ Oil on canvas 61 x 51 Signed 65. ‘Still Life’ Oil on canvas 75 x 60 Signed 66. ‘Hannah’ Oil on board 40 x 30 Signed
Paul Kelly b.1968
64. ‘Self Portrait as Cúchulain’
67. ‘Old Road, Rush, Co. Dublin’ Oil on board 41 x 51 Signed 68. ‘Towards Howth (from Portrane)’ Oil on board 24 x 34.5 Signed 69. ‘The Fair Day’ Oil on board 25.5 x 20.5 Signed
69. ‘The Fair Day’ An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings
Gorry Gallery – Page 35
Index of Artists
page
page
Atkinson, George M.W. Ballagh, Robert
11 31, 34
MacDonald, Daniel
14
McKendry, Kenny
33
Barret, George
18
Maclise, Daniel
(inside front cover), 28
Bonnard, Pierre
24
Magrath, William
Brenan, James
10
Maguire, Cecil
31
Brett, John
13
Matisse, Henri
24
Cézanne, Paul
22
Murphy, Noel
33
8, 9
Day and Haghe
29, 30
O’Connor, James Arthur
Dobbin, Lady Kate
29, 30
Osborne, Walter
6, 7
(front cover), 2, 3, 4
Doyle, Richard
28
Picasso, Pablo
21
Griffin-Bernstorff, Ann
32
Rocque, John
15
Hamilton, Hugh Douglas
16
Sadler, William
29
Seguin, Armand
26 29
Harrison, Sarah Cecilia
5, 28
Hayes, Gearóid
35
Thaddeus, Harry Jones
Johnson, Nevill
12
Vuillard, Édouard
Kavanagh, Joseph M.
13
Walmsley, Thomas
7
Kelly, Paul
35
Wheatley, Francis
17
Luke, John
30
Woodlock, David
27, 30
22, 23, 25
We are grateful to the following for their kind assistance in the preparation of this catalogue: Christopher Ashe Gillian Buckley Dr. Julian Campbell Dickon Hall Gerard Humphreys Dr. Claudia Kinmonth M.A. (R.C.A.) PhD. William Laffan Richard Lawton Susan Mulhall Peter Murray Robert O’Byrne Liam O’Meara Colin Rafferty Dr. Brendan Rooney Dr. Denys Wilcox
Page 36 – Gorry Gallery
An Exhibition of 18th-21st Century Irish Paintings
GORRY GALLERY 20 Molesworth Street, Dublin 2. Telephone and Fax + 353 (0)1 679 5319 The Gallery is open Monday - Friday 11.30 a.m. - 5.30 p.m. Saturday (during exhibition only) 11.30 a.m. - 2.30 p.m. www.gorrygallery.ie Origination by DOC - the_doc@eircom.net Printing by W&G Baird