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Paul Henry RHA (1876-1958)
A KERRY BOG, 1934-1935
oil on canvas
signed lower left; titled on label on reverse; also with number [9] on reverse
16 x 18in. (40.64 x 45.72cm)
Provenance:
Combridge Gallery, Dublin;Where purchased by the present owner’s father
Exhibited:
‘Recent Paintings of Kerry & Connemara by Paul Henry, R.H.A.’, Combridge Gallery, Dublin, from 7 May 1935, catalogue
no. 35
Paul Henry first visited County Kerry, staying at Glenbeigh, in late 1932 or early 1933. The visit marked a watershed in
his life, for throughout the previous decade his domestic affairs had deteriorated to culminate eventually in the break
up of his marriage to his first wife, Grace, in 1929. Thus when he returned to Glenbeigh his mood was lighter, as was
his palette, as the Irish Press (7 May 1935) perceptively noted both in terms of tone and colour. Henry was enchanted
with the Kerry landscape. ‘It is lovely. Wherever one turns there is material for dozens of pictures … I felt that if I spent a
lifetime … I would never exhaust all the possible subjects,’ he told James Healy, a friend in New York. (1)
The first fruits of that visit were shown at Combridge’s Gallery in the Spring of 1935. A Kerry Bog was possibly one of
the earliest pictures inspired by the trip-others include The Road to Coomasaharnn, 1934-5 (Queen’s University, Belfast)
and In the Kingdom of Kerry, 1935-1937 (private collection)-the artist’s mood being revealed in the clouds which are
heavyish, although the brightness of the bogland itself belies the ominous quality in the clouds. The subject matter,
however, is typically ‘Henry’, as is the manner in which the eye is led into the composition, eventually reaching the
distant mountains.
A Kerry Bog is numbered 1300 in S. B. Kennedy’s ongoing cataloguing of Paul Henry’s oeuvre.
Dr S.B. Kennedy
January 2016
1. Henry to James Healy, letter of 13 December 1934 (James Healy Papers, James A. Healy Collection of Modern Irish
Literature, Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries).
€60000-€80000 (£45600-£57600 approx.)
Large Image & Place Bid Lot 20