18
WHYTES
SINCE 1783
,
15
Paul Henry RHA (1876-1958)
WESTERN LANDSCAPE, c. 1918-1919
oil on canvas
signed lower left; inscribed on stretcher on reverse; with original price [£6-6-0] on reverse
14 by 16in. (35.56 by 40.64cm)
Provenance:
Private collection, London;
with the Berkeley Square Gallery, London;
Christie’s, ‘The Irish Sale’, May 2006, lot 171;
Private collection
Exhibited:
‘20th Century British Art’, Scholar Fine Art and Berkeley Square Gallery, London, 12 June to 26
July 2003, catalogue no. 17, erroneously as
Bringing in the Harvest
(illustrated)
The low hills in the distance and the flatness of the foreground bog which borders the sea suggest that
the present work is a view looking west across Blacksod Bay in Co. Mayo where Henry worked during his
later years in the West. For a number of years after he first arrived on Achill Island his movements were
confined mostly to the island itself, with occasional trips to Leenane and the southern shores of Killary
Harbour. However, early in 1917 he took a part-time job with the Congested Districts Board as Paymaster
for the areas of Achill Island, Ballycroy, Bangor Erris and Pollatomish in north Co. Mayo.The work, which
was not onerous, allowed Henry to travel further afield than was hitherto possible.
Western Landscape
was probably made from sketches done on one of these occasions.The handling of
the paint, which has been built up in layers of precise brushwork, the heavy massing of the menacing
cumulous clouds and the band of blue of the distant hills, which are devoid of any modelling and which
halt the eye’s recession, are all characteristics of Henry’s work of his later years in the West.The picture is
dated 1918-19 on stylistic grounds as well as the form of the signature, with a dot after both names.
Western Landscape
is catalogued as number 511 in Kennedy’s ongoing catalogue raisonné of the artist’s
oeuvre.
Dr S. B. Kennedy
October, 2013
€
40,000-
€
50,000 (£33,610-£42,020 approx.)
