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

‘of your part of the country …as Tir na nÓg, for all the wild ones if it could be feather, fur and scales.’ Over the next few years Ernie would buy seven more Yeats paintings including ‘Reverie’ in 1944 [Lot 25 in this auction catalogue ], ‘Fighting Dawn,’ in 1945 [Lot 40 in this auction catalogue ], and ‘Evening in Sligo,’ also in 1945 [Lot 30 in this auction catalogue]. Helen bought at least nine works of Jack B. Yeats including ‘Enfolding Night’ [Lot 20 in this auction catalogue]. He encouraged Thomas MacGreevy to write and publish his study on Yeats, but that did not appear until 1945. During the war years Ernie and Helen were entertained by Eduard Hempel. the German Ambassador to Ireland. Initally suspicious of these meetings, given Ernie’s former IRA connections, the Irish government’s Intelligence Division ultimately concluded that these events were indeed merely social and intellectual, concerning music and the arts. Hempel’s interest in Irish art is known through his patronage of Patrick Hennessy, whom he commissioned to paint portraits of his family in 1939, two of which were sold at Whyte’s in May 2011. By 1944 Ernie was deeply involved in a committee to organise the Jack B. Yeats National Loan Exhibition of 1945. With the help of Yeats and Victor Waddington, Ernie was able to compiled a master list of Yeats paintings and identify their owners. When the exhibition finally opened, Ernie spent time compiling a notebook of sketches and descriptions of each of the paintings as he realised this was a unique time to record his impressions of Yeats’ work. Yeats did not like photographs being taken of his paintings. Ernie also wrote an introduction to the exhibit. It was a telling critical analysis of Yeats’ work and style. Yeats was so appreciative of Ernie’s role in the exhibition and catalogue that he gave him some of his early sketchbooks [Lots 1 to 19 and 78 to 91 in this auction catalogue] and a selection of pencil portraits by his father John B. Yeats [Lots 22, 24 26, 27 and 29 in this auction catalogue]. In December, Jack Yeats thanked Ernie for inviting him to a dinner to meet John Rothenstein, director of the Tate Gallery, and for ‘bringing him [Rothenstein] along and introducing him to the paintings.’ In 1943 the Irish Exhibition of Living Art (IELA) was founded to display works of artists no longer accepted by the Royal Hibernian Academy. It represented the modern approach to art. Ernie had purchased Mainie Jellett’s ‘The Land, Éire’ in 1944 [Lot 59 in this auction catalogue]. This work was included in a memorial exhibition soon after she died. When Ernie and Helen returned to a new house in Dublin in 1944, he acquired more art to furnish their home including works by Da Barton, Thurloe Connolly, Gerald Dillon, Stella Frost, Evie Hone, Mae Guinness, Jack Hanlon, Mainie Jellett, Louis le Brocquy, Norah MacGuinness, Isa MacNie, Colin Middleton, Grace Plunkett, Anthony Redford, Nano Reid, Elizabeth Rivers, Cecil Salkeld, Stella Solomons, and Anne Yeats. Helen also bought many paintingsand sculptures by many artists including Anne Yeats [Lot 41 in this auction catalogue], Patrick Hennessy, and Laurence Campbell. When Mainie Jellett died in 1944, Ernie was supportive of her Memorial Scholarship. He opened an exhibition of Evie Hone’s works in late 1945. He was a well known figure in the Irish art world. His catalogues for each exhibit contain his scribbled comments noting the names of the buyers, if known. By this time Thomas MacGreevy published the first book on the work of Jack B. Yeats. In early 1946 Ernie reviewed this work for The Bell, an important literary and cultural magazine. Ernie continued to build his collection by adding paintings by continental and British artists Ken Hall, Nick Nicholls, John Piper, Rolli Rolland and George Szobel [Lots 53, 46, 42, 52, and 63 in this auction catalogue]. He helped to organise an exhibition of continental art in Dublin at this time, loaning some of his paintings under the pseudonym Bernard Stewart. While Helen was involved in founding the Players Theatre, Ernie started a project to interview thirty-five modern artists 13 THE ERNIE O’MALLEY COLLECTION · 25 NOVEMBER 2019 AT 6PM Ismael Gonzalez De La Serna VIEW FROM AWINDOW OF A TERRACE, 1933 [lot 62 in this auction]