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

12 In June 1935 Paul Strand was on his return to New York from Moscow, when he stopped off in Ireland to visit Ernie. For five weeks Ernie introduced him to rural Ireland with its archaeological sites, medieval monasteries with sculpture and architecture. Both were fascinated by what they saw. Years later Paul asked Ernie to write the introduction for his proposed book of photographs on rural Ireland. Clearly their travels in Ireland resonated with Ernie. Later he and Helen spent several years pursuing an encyclopedic coverage of over 150 Irish medieval monasteries, high crosses, gravestones and ancient archaeological ruins. Ernie aimed to infuse the traditional academic archaeological images with an artistic ‘aesthetic.’ One of the first groups Ernie had joined on his return was the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland (RSAI). Through the RSAI he met many people interested in the archaeology. He also acquired a number of books in the field as well as in Irish and European medieval religious art in Ireland Ernie was a regular borrower from the National Library of Ireland. He retained his copy of all the book requests he made over the years. When Ernie and Helen did marry in September1935, they settled in Dublin and began to entertain. They had a broad spectrum of friends who were now well established in their own professional fields and were interested in the arts and literature. Over the next few years, and especially after Ernie published the first half of his acclaimed memoir, On Another Man’s Wound, quit his medical studies, and pursued a diploma in European Painting from UCD, Ernie became well known in Irish artistic and literary circles. His memoir was published in Dublin, London, Boston and Berlin. He was later elected to William Butler Yeats’ Irish Academy of Letters. When Helen settled into their Rathmines house, she brought her own eclectic art collection from her travels in the United States, Europe, Russia and Asia. On their 1938 holiday in France, Ernie and Helen photographed French monasteries and castles and purchased some modestly priced European paintings including those of Ismael Gonzalez de la Serna [Lot 62 in this auction catalogue], André Derain, Georges Dorignac, Jean Dufy, Marcel Dyf, Alasandre Ganesco, Moise Kisling, André Marchand [Lot 66 in this auction catalogue], Amedeo Modigliani, Georges Rouault, and Maurice Vlaminck. The O’Malley home was an international museum with Russian and Greek icons, Chinese wooden sculptures and masks, and French and European artwork long before it was a Modern Irish art showplace. When the paintings arrived from France in May 1938, Ernie wrote Helen that he had ‘rehung some pictures: In Hall, Kisling, De La Serna, Boynton pastel; In Drawing Room, Theo Goddard, Marchand, Vlaminck (watercolour), Rouault, Dyf, Modigliani; My Study, Vlaminck (Bridge), Lurcat.’ 6 Ernie’s first Irish art purchase before 1938 was by Maurice MacGonigal [Lot34 in this auction catalogue], another veteran of the War of Independence. In subsequent years, and particularly when he ‘fell in love’ with a painting by Jack Yeats (‘Death for Only One’, Lot 35 in this auction catalogue), he came to appreciate how some of the Irish artists were taking a modern approach. 7 He always preferred quasi-representational art over abstract art. He concentrated on the fluidity of the form of depiction. Ernie’s friends in the realm of literature and history included Austin Clarke, Denis Devlin, Padraic Fallon, Frank Gallagher, Patrick Kavanagh, Don MacDonough, Helen Landreth, Sybil le Brocquy, Louis MacNeice, Seán Ó Faoláin, Frank O’Connor, Peadar O’Donnell, James O’Donovan, Seamus O’Sullivan, Lennox Robinson, Francis Stuart and Gerald Sykes. In the art world, Ernie came to know Dulcibell (‘Da’) Barton, Robert Burke, Ralph Cusack, Gerald Dillon, Stella Frost, Father Jack Hanlon, Evie Hone [lots 36, 57, 58, 60 and 61], Mainie Jellett [lot 59 in this auction], Louis le Brocquy [lots 54-56 in this auction], Maurice MacGonigal [lot 34 in this auction], Ed McGuire, Norah McGuinness [lot 39 in this auction], Colin Middleton [lot 64 in this auction], Seán O’Sullivan, Nano Reid [lot 37 in this auction], Elizabeth Rivers [lot 96 in this auction], Markey Robinson, Cecil Salkeld, Caroline Scally, Stella Solomons, Jack B. Yeats [lots 1-20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 78-93, 95, and 97-99 in this auction], Anne Yeats [lot 41 in this auction], as well as Thurloe Connolly, Ken Hall [lot 53 in this auction], Nick Nicholls [lot 46 in this auction], and Rolli Roland [52 in this auction]. The latter were all members of the White Stag Group. He had a broad spectrum of friends in the academic and institutional world including Pádraig de Brún (Paddy Browne, the President, University College Galway), James Delargy (Seamus Ó Duilearga), Professor David Green, Françoise Henry (art historian), Robert Herbert (Limerick library), John V. Kelleher (Harvard professor), Eileen McGraine MacCarvill (UCD lecturer), Roger McHugh (UCD lecturer), Jack Sweeney (Harvard library), and Roisín Walsh (Dublin City Library). Some of his museum and institutional world friends included Michael Henehan (National museum of Ireland), Thomas MacGreevy, Leo Smith, James Johnson Sweeney, and Victor Waddington. After their French holiday in 1938, Helen and Ernie considered moving to France for a few years but instead decided upon the West of Ireland, where Ernie was from. They kept abreast of the Dublin scene by visiting there regularly. He attended Con P. Curran’s Wednesday evenings ‘Open House’ where in 1937 he met Jack Yeats and Mrs Cornelius Sullivan, a New York art gallery owner. He visited Yeats regularly and corresponded with him for the next ten years. Yeats was delighted to think