WHYTE'S in association with CHRISTIE'S - The Ernie O'Malley Collection MONDAY 25 November 2019

114 56 Louis le Brocquy HRHA (1916-2012) THEATRE STUDY FOR RED ROSES FOR ME, 1946 ink and watercolour signed and dated lower right 5.50 by 9in. (14 by 22.9cm) Provenance: Purchased by Helen Hooker O’Malley, circa 1946-48; Thence by family descent Theatre Study for Red Roses for Me (1946) probably refers to the play by Seán O’Casey of that name. First published in 1942, its world premier took place the following year at Dublin’s Olympia Theatre. It went on to be shown at various venues in Britain and was performed again in Dublin in June 1946, which may have prompted le Brocquy’s artwork of that year. Widely reviewed in the British and Irish media, it addressed subjects of interest to the artist. Set in the era of the strikes leading to the 1913 Lockout, which O’Casey had witnessed, it addressed social and religious conflict, the plight of the poor and dispossessed, the complexities of familial and romantic relationships and featured a central protagonist who exhibited a range of cultural creativity (from sketching to reading Shakespeare) before his heroic martyrdom in the chaos of social unrest. According to one review, the plot, “derives from the familiar pattern of the frustrated young worker dying for his dream of a better social and humanitarian world”. (1) In the painting, five figures occupy the space in a variety of poses – some with the signature triangular faces of that phase – presented with dynamic linear drawing and rapid brushwork. This image bears visual affinities with a number of works in the ‘tinker’ series of this period suggesting thematic parallels also, perhaps in a general motif of inequality and injustice and of the dramatic consequences of heroic aspiration. The scene in le Brocquy’s Theatre Study projects the physical and emotional turmoil of the events expressed in O’Casey’s “turbulent, compassionate play”. (2) Dr Yvonne Scott September 2019 1 . ‘O’Casey’s “Red Roses for Me”’, Sunday Independent, 23 June 1946, p.2. 2 . ‘New Shows Reviewed’, Evening Herald, 18 June 1946, p.4. €6,000-€8,000 (£5,260-£7,020 approx.) Click Here for Large Images & To Bid Lot 56