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Paul Henry RHA (1876-1958)
CONNEMARA LANDSCAPE, 1930-1940
oil on canvas
signed lower right; with handwritten Bell Gallery [Belfast] and typed Frederick Gallery [Dublin] labels on
reverse
15.25 by 18.5in. (38.74 by 46.99cm)
Provenance:
H. Bell, Esq., Belfast;
Bell Gallery, Belfast;
Frederick Gallery, Dublin, March 1998;
Adam’s, 1 June 2011, lot 16;
Private collection
Exhibited:
‘Irish Art’, Frederick Gallery, Dublin, from 9 March 1998, catalogue no.1;
’Ulster Artists Exhibition’, Adam’s at Ava Gallery, Clandeboye, 15-29 April 2010, catalogue no.13;
’Ulster Artists II Exhibition’, The Ava Gallery, February to May 2011, catalogue no.10
Literature:
Kennedy, Dr S.B., Paul Henry: Paintings, Drawings and Illustrations, Yale University Press, New Haven and
London, 2007, no.789, p.256 (illustrated)
The subject of the present work is likely to be Connemara or County Kerry where the artist worked in the
early to mid 1930s and it is probably based on sketches done while touring the west. The lightness of the
palette - a reflection of his improved financial and domestic situation - as well as the handling of the paint in
the sky and foreground also suggests an execution date around this period.
The use of the roadway as a device to draw the eye into the composition is one which Henry frequently
employed to bring depth to a composition. Here, the viewer’s eye is drawn to the middle distance where the
road recedes and is quickly halted by the background mountains and low hills.
The narrative of the scene is confined to the cottages and turf stacks in the lower picture plane thus allowing
the dominant cumulous clouds to take centre stage. Connemara Landscape was reproduced in the 1930s,
possibly by the artist’s dealer Combridge’s, although the publishers are not known.
We are grateful to Dr. S.B. Kennedy for his kind assistance in cataloguing this lot.
€80,000-€120,000 (£62,990-£94,490 approx.)
Large Image & Place Bid Lot 19