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Michael George Brennan (1839-1871)
PORTRAIT OF LAURA REDDEN SEARING IN THE STUDIO, 1867
oil on canvas
faintly inscribed and dated on the stretcher
25 x 18in. (63_ x 45.72cm)
Michael George Brennan, subject and landscape painter, was born and educated in Castlebar Co. Mayo where his talents
were noted by Charles O’Donal, afterwards a police magistrate in Dublin (Strickland, p.83). Aged fifteen he was sent to
the Dublin Society’s School and later the Royal Hibernian Academy where his skills where honed. He later travelled to
London, working on several publications there, including Fun, a rival to Punch. Ill health in the form of typhoid fever
led Brennan back to Ireland and later prompted a further relocation to the warmer climes of Italy. Settling first in Rome,
Brennan continued to send back paintings for exhibition in the Royal Academy between the years 1865-1878. Strickland
describes how his works were warmly praised as admirably painted, harmonious in colour, and full of character and
feeling.” Brennan’s deteriorating condition provoked later trips to Capri and it was here that he came in contact with
the subject of this work, Miss Laura Catherine Redden, a celebrated deaf American poet, journalist and author. The pair
were engaged within ten days of meeting and while they discussed their future wedding plans the engagement was
ultimately broken off, the reasons for which are unknown. One rumoured explanation was that Redden was not willing
to forego her flourishing career. Brennan died from a fall in 1871.
Laura Catherine Redden (1839-1923) was born in Maryland in the United States. Having lost her hearing at the age
eleven she enrolled in the Missouri School for the Deaf (MSD) and later developed the skill of sign language and the
American Manual Alphabet. Upon graduation in 1859 Redden was unable to enrol in college because of her disability;
thus to supplement her education she travelled to Europe between 1865-1896 where she studied several languages.
When she met Brennan she was already a published writer with articles in Harper’s Magazine and American Annals of
the Deaf where she championed the struggles of the deaf community. Earlier in 1860, she became the editorialist for
the St. Louis Republican and officially adopted the pseudonym Howard Glyndon. In 1861, she was sent by the St. Louis
Republican to Washington D.C. report on the American Civil War. She was a pro-Union loyalist and wrote poems about
the experiences and human interests of the battlefield. Redden also wrote to Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant
during the war period and it was with this wealth of experience that she later travelled to Europe between 1865-1869 to
become a correspondent for The New York Times.
After the engagement to Brennan was called off, Redden returned to America and in 1876 married Edward Whelan
Searing, a lawyer, with whom she had one child. By 1870, she returned to New York and Boston and was a staff writer for
the New York Evening Mail and contributed to Galaxy, Harper’s Magazine, and the Tribune. The marriage did not last and
they divorced in 1894. Laura Redden Searing died in 1923 and was buried in Colma, California. She is remembered as a
pioneer within the deaf community and is pictured here as a sensual muse of a former lover in the prime of her life.”
€ 10,000.00- € 15,000.00 (£7,460-£11,190 approx.)
Large Image & Place Bid Lot 42IMPORTANT IRISH ART ·
25 MAY 2015 AT 6PM