WHYTE'S IRISH & INTERNATIONAL ART MONDAY 4 MARCH 2019 AT 6PM

80 Louis le Brocquy HRHA (1916-2012) STUDY TOWARDS AN IMAGE OF JAMES JOYCE, 1977 watercolour inscribed [12] in pencil lower left; also inscribed [ 36 / W.279 / L] in pencil on reverse; with Gimpel Fils exhibition label on reverse; also with Tulfarris Art Galley label on reverse 9 by 7.50in. (22.9 by 19.1cm) Provenance: Gimpel Fils Gallery, London; Private collection; with Tulfarris Art Gallery, Wicklow; Where purchased by the family of the present owner Exhibited: ‘Louis le Brocquy, Studies Towards an Image of James Joyce’, Gimpel Fils Gallery, London, 15 March to 15 April 1978, no. 36 According to Anne Crookshank 1: ‘Le Brocquy has always been a great practitioner of watercolour and the thin washes of his early oils have much in common with this method. But, in the last few years, his watercolours have taken on a new value. The irregular dabs of brilliant colour, purple, blue, and green, as non-descriptive as the tesserae of a Byzantine mosaic, build up the form of his heads with a tense, nervous immediacy which oil with its overlapping layers and opaque thickness never can achieve. The traces of paper left between each stroke, which enhance the brilliancy of the colors, and the gleam of whiteness, which glows through the paint, all help to create the truly magical effect of images coagulating in front of your eyes, coming alive, mediating, speaking, and ultimately returning to their own imaginative genius. He sometimes uses tissue paper to paint from, using it in such a way that the creases make caesuras in the strokes of paint. The results are deliberately induced accidents which help to keep the images at a distance from us, to give them reality only as paintings, not as descriptive portraits ... The magic of the quietness of le Brocquy’s oils is surpassed only by the excitement of his watercolors. They may be as still as the oils. But the sheer joy of their running, smudged, fragmented, clear colors brings vital reality to the spirit of his rediscovered genius. In this aspect of his work, le Brocquy has added a new dimension to his art. He has become a great colorist.’ 1. Quoted on lebrocquy.com €5000-€7000 (£4,390-£6,140 approx.) Click Here for Large Images & To Bid Lot 80 IRISH & INTERNATIONAL ART · 4 MARCH 2019 AT 6PM