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
,
52
Mainie Jellett (1897-1944)
PAINTING, 1930 oil on canvas
signed and dated lower right; with small hand-written label on reverse; with Irish Art
Exhibition [Brussels] label inscribed with artistʼs name, address [36 Fitzwilliam Sq., Dublin]
and title; with Corporation of Dublin exhibition label on reverse; also with James Bourlet &
Sonʼs label on reverse 30 by 36in. (76 by 91cm)
Provenance: Mr & Mrs James Creed Meredith K.C., LL.D. (1875-1942); Thence by
descent to th present owner
Exhibited: Irish Art Exhibition, Brussels, May 1930; ʻMainie Jellett Retrospective
Exhibi ionʼ, Hugh Lane Gallery Dublin, July - October 1962, catalogue no. 3;
Handwritten label verso reads: 34. / oil / 30 by 36 / A054 / Painting Brussels / Ref Abstract.
In 1921 the young Irish artists Mainie Jellett and Evie Hone arrived in Paris to study with
the Cubist master André Lhote. Jellett and Hone had studied in London under Walter
Sickert where they absorbed important lessons in anatomy and classical portraiture, but
this wasnʼt enough, they wanted to be ʻmodernʼ and in the early 1920s the terms ʻModernʼ
and ʻCubistʼ were synonymous. Lhote was one of the first generation of Cubists, having
shown in the second public exhibition of Cubism at the Salon des Indépendents of 1912.
Following the Armistice in late 1918, cultural activity was renewed in Paris and Lhote
opened an academy where a significant number of Irish artists were taught to paint along
cubist principles. From work produced by Jellett at this time, we know that working from
the nude odel, seated portraits, and still-lifes were central to the curriculum. For Jellett
and Hone this was too similar to the training they had received in London, so in 1922 they
famo sly asked t be taken on as stud nts by the painter Albert Gleizes, who had neither
an academy nor an open studio. Gleizes had been developing a form of Cubist abstraction
more in tune with Mo drian than Picasso and in 1920 published ʻDu Cubisme et les
moyens de le comprendreʼ1, arguing that “Cubism had been a search for a precise
scientific method to replace the old scientific method of single point perspective, and that
the essential elements of this new method are now known”2.
Working together, the artists developed a system of ʻtranslation and rotationʼ the early
result of which, Jellettʼs Painting, 1923 (National Gallery of Ireland) was shown at the
Dublin Painters Gallery that year to critical derision. Although on first glance Painting ,
1923is abstract, closer inspection of the format, composition, medium, and patterning
relate it directly to early Renaissance religions icons like Cimabueʼs Maestà(c.1280).This
was not co-incidental. Although much of the modern movement was fiercely secular,
Gleizes, Jellett and Hone maintained a deeply Christian faith and sought to integrate
Christian imagery into their modern vision.Through the mid-20s they worked on a series of
ʻElementsʼ paintings – largely abstract exercises in colour and form. In 1927-28 Jellett
produced her major work Homage to Fra Angelico, a cubist interpretation of Angelicoʼs
Coronation of the Virgin (c.1435, Louvre, Paris).This is a mature work in Jellettʼs oeuvre
demonstrating the successful cubist reduction of a form with traditional religious content,
something we also see in the present work, Painting, 1930.
1 On Cubism and the means to understand it. 2 Peter Brooke, Albert Gleizes, Chronology
of his life, 1881-1953.
€20,000-€30,000 (£16,530-£24,790 approx.)
