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Paul Henry RHA (1876-1958)

MAAM VALLEY, CONNEMARA

oil on canvas laid on board

signed lower left; with faint inscription [“Lady Mrs Power Conn? Glen?”

and framing instructions] in pencil on reverse; with label of C.D. Soar &

Son [Kensington] also on reverse

11.25 by 13in. (28.58 by 33.02cm)

Provenance:

Artist’s studio till 1956;

Where acquired by P. R. Jennings, Esq.;

Adam’s & Bonhams, Dublin, 8 December 2004, lot 162;

Whence purchased by the present owner

Exhibited:

‘Paintings by Paul Henry, R.H.A.’, Combridge’s Gallery, Dublin, 23

October- 6 November 1945, catalogue no. 5; ‘Pictures by Paul Henry,

RHA’, Heal & Son, Tottenham Court Road, London, from 14 January

1946, no. 3; ‘Paintings and Charcoals: Paul Henry RHA’,Waddington

Galleries, Dublin, 21 February - 3 March 1952 (no. 3, as

The Maam

Valley

); RHA, Annual Exhibition, Dublin, Spring 1953, no. 28; ‘Paintings

and Drawings by Paul Henry’, The Studio, Sidmonton Square, Bray, until

8 November 1956, no. 12 (probably acquired by P. R. Jennings); ‘Paul

Henry: Retrospective Exhibition’, Ritchie Hendriks Gallery, St. Stephen’s

Green, Dublin, and Belfast Museum & Art Gallery, Belfast, May-July 1957,

no. 58 (Lent by P. R. Jennings).

Literature:

Stewart, Anne M. (ed.),

Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts: Index of

Exhibitors and their Works 1826-1979

, Dublin, Manton Publishing, 1985,

vol. 2, p.82; Kennedy, S. B.,

Paul Henry

, New Haven and London, Yale

University Press, 2000, p.135;

Paul Henry: with a catalogue of the

Paintings, Drawings, Illustrations

, Yale, 2007, catalogue no. 1035, p.303

(illustrated)

Painted in June or July 1942 when Henry visited Maam. The light palette

and the bravura of the brushwork throughout, and notably in the

foreground, are characteristic of his work at this time. As often with Henry,

little artistic license has been taken with his interpretation of the

landscape, which represents the view westwards on the road north from

Maam Cross in County Galway, near the junction with the Leenane to

Cong road at Feernakill Bridge. The river in the foreground is the Failmore

River and the mountains beyond, which arrest the eye’s recession, are the

Maamturks and the hills of Joyce’s Country.

Dr. S.B. Kennedy

April 2012

€

20,000-

€

25,000 (£16,393-£20,491 approx).