46
62
Paul Henry RHA (1876-1958)
KEEL VILLAGE, ACHILL ISLAND, 1911
oil on canvas
signed lower left
18 by 20in. (45.72 by 50.80cm)
Provenance:
Private collection;
Adam’s, 28 May 2003, lot 86;
Whence purchased by the present owner
Exhibited:
‘Paintings by Mrs. Frances Baker, Grace Henry, Paul Henry, Casimir Dunin-Markiewicz and George
Russell (AE), Leinster Hall, Dublin, 16-21 October, 1911, catalogue no. 35 or 36
Literature:
Kennedy, S.B.,
Paul Henry, Paintings Drawings Illustrations
, Yale University Press, New Haven &
London, 2007, catalogue no. 342, p.162 (illustrated)
In original Waddington frame.
The form of the signature, with dots between the two words of the artist’s name and after the word Henry,
signify that this composition must have been painted shortly after the artist arrived on Achill Island in
August 1911.The village of Keel, where in his autobiography,
An Irish Portrait
(1951), he tells us he settled, is
seen from the high ground to the north-west, the long and graceful sweep of Trawmore Strand dominating
the middle distance.The scene has been rendered with remarkable economy of means, there being only
moderate impasto, but a great sense of fluidity, in the handling of the paint. As is characteristic of Henry’s
painting at this time the brushwork is rigorously descriptive of form and structure and the use of subtle
blues and greys to emphasise the recession of the landscape is a foretaste of the strong Whistlerian
influence that would soon emerge in his painting.The use of upright brushstrokes, as seen in the near
foreground, is characteristic of other Henry pictures of this time.There is an almost identical, but smaller,
composition of the same title and period to this in the Ulster Museum, Belfast. Nowadays the village of Keel
is larger, although not substantially so, so that the main thrust of the landscape can clearly be seen. Henry’s
excitement at his new-found surroundings is also evident in his rendering of the landscape.
Dr SB Kennedy
February 2013
€
50,000-
€
70,000 (£42,700-£59,800 approx.)
WHYTES
SINCE 1783
,
48
Mary Swanzy HRHA (1882-1978)
TREES
oil on canvas
signed lower left
21 by 18in. (53 by 46cm)
Provenance: Family of the artist
Although she studied art in Paris in 1905 and 1906 where she was amongst the first Irish artists to
see the work of Pablo Picasso, Swanzy did not begin making and exhibiting Cubist inspired work
until the 1920s and 1930s. She was one of Irelandʼs most innovative exponents of this approach,
using it in imaginative ways in a range of landscapes, figure studies and paintings of propellers. As
she never dated her paintings, it is difficult to be precise about the chronology of the work, but she
appears to have made and exhibited most of her Cubist inspired paintings after 1920.
Having moved back to Dublin from Paris, Swanzy continued to travel widely visiting London, Italy,
Czechoslovakia, Polynesia and the United States. She maintained contact with the French art world
throughout the 1910s nd 1920s, exhibiting at and becoming a committee member of the Salon des
Independants, the largest show of modern art in Paris. Her work was shown at this venue alongside
that of the Orphic cubists, Sonja and Robert Delaunay. Orphism, a hugely influential movement, was
concerned with the impact of light and colour on the vision of the artist.The paintings of Robert
Delaunay are preoccupi d with aerona tical flight and altitude throug which he could demonstrate
how form is made of pure colour.The influence of these ideas is apparent in Trees.
The bright colours and dynamic geometric patterning of the composition of Trees are also evocative
of speed and movement. Swanzy was clearly aware of Italian Futurism and British Vorticism when
she painted the work. Both movements stress the importance of dynamism in art and of representing
technology. The railway track or roadway in the f reground of Treessuggests movement through the
landscape resulting in a distortion of the forms. Swanzyʼs father was a well-known ophthalmic
surgeon and h r fragmentation of the composition is equally reminiscent of ophthalmic lenses and
optical devices.
The giant pink trees with their swaying yellow barks are probably inspired by the exotic vegetation
that Swanzy saw on her travels to Samoa and Hawaii in the 1920s.The tall towers in the distance (to
the right) recur in several of her paintings, a memory of San Gimignano, the medieval city in
Tuscany, near to Florence where the artist lived for a period before World War One. Swanzy draws
on her vast experiences of travel and modern art in her work.The result is an inventive and unique
engagement with Cubism and Futurism that was not always valued by her contemporaries in Dublin
which she left in 1926 to settle with her sister in London.The originality of her work, however,
ensured Swanzyʼs rediscovery as one of Irelandʼs most significant modernist painters at the end of
her life in the 1960s and 1970s when she finally enjoyed critical and commercial success. Trees is
an important example of her Cubist work.
Dr. Róisín Kennedy
April 2014
€15,000-€18,000 (£12,400-£14,880 approx.)
