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Seán Keating PRHA HRA HRSA (1889-1977)
ERWIN SCHRÖDINGER, 1955-1956
pencil
signed lower right; titled lower left
18¾ x 13¾in. (47.63 x 34.93cm)
Provenance:
Purchased directly from the artist
The present work was a study for a watercolour of the sitter exhibited by Keating at the RHA in Dublin in 1956. That
watercolour was also included in the artist’s retrospective exhibition at the Municipal Gallery, Dublin in 1963.
Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger was a Nobel Prize-winning Austrian physicist; he developed a number of
fundamental results in the field of quantum theory, which formed the basis of wave mechanics. He was the author of
several works in various fields of physics and his book What Is Life? addressed the problems of genetics, looking at the
phenomenon of life from the point of view of physics. He is also known for his Schrödinger’s cat” thought-experiment.
His opposition to the Nazi regime forced him to leave Austria for Rome. In the late 1930s Schrödinger received a
personal invitation from Ireland’s Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, to reside in Ireland and help establish an Institute for
Advanced Studies in Dublin. When he migrated to Ireland de Valera was instrumental in obtaining visas for him, his
wife and his mistress, Mrs. Hilde March with whom he had fathered a daughter. The ménage a trois took up residence
in Clontarf in Dublin and he became the Director of the School for Theoretical Physics in 1940 where he remained for
17 years. He became a naturalised Irish citizen in 1948, but retained his Austrian citizenship. Schrödinger fathered two
further daughters by two different women during his time in Ireland. Schrödinger stayed in Dublin until retiring in 1955
but returned to Vienna in 1956.
To this day, Schrödinger is known as the father of quantum mechanics. The Erwin Schrödinger International Institute for
Mathematical Physics was established in Vienna in 1993 and a building is named after him at the University of Limerick.
Schrödinger’s portrait was the main feature of the design of the 1983-1997 Austrian 1000-Schilling banknote.
We are grateful to Dr Éimear O’Connor HRHA for her assistance in cataloguing this lot.”
€1500-€2000 (£1140-£1440 approx.)
Large Image & Place Bid Lot 37