WHYTES IMPORTANT IRISH ART 30 MAY 2016

IMPORTANT IRISH ART · 30 MAY 2016 AT 6PM

Barrie Cooke HRHA (1931-2014)

FOREST TRIPTYCH, 1976

oil on canvas; (3)

each canvas signed, titled and dated on reverse; two of three with Hendriks Gallery labels on reverse

70 x 60in. (177.80 x 152.40cm)

Provenance:

Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner

Barrie Cooke has always been influenced by the natural world. ‘His involvement with the land emerges from

his obsession with nature and its continual change - changing light, changing reflections in water, and the

powerful changes brought about by growth itself.’ (1) The motto ‘everything flows’ inscribed on his studio

wall could describe the style of his flowing paint at the command of nature. Forest Tryptych was likely influ-

enced by a trip to the rainforest of the Malaysian Borneo 1975. Cooke has described the profound influence

of this tropical environment as ‘the only time in my life where the paintings almost made themselves’.

Cooke settled in Ireland in 1954 but was born in England and educated at Harvard, Skowhegan and

Kokoschka’s School of Seeing in Salzburg. A founder member of Independent Artists and Aosdána, he served

on the boards of the Douglas Hyde Gallery and the Butler Gallery. He exhibited regularly at the Hendriks

Gallery, Dublin, and, from 1986, at the Kerlin Gallery.

Footnote:

1. Walker, Dorothy, Modern Art in Ireland, The Lilliput Press, Dublin 1997, page 74

€20,000-€30,000 (£15,750-£23,620 approx.)