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

14 with plans to prepare some publication. He interviewed the artists, viewed their exhibits and acquired some of their art. Peadar O’Donnell became editor of The Bell in 1946 and invited Ernie to be its Books and Art Editor, whose function was to identify interesting new publications, obtain copies of these, arrange for them to be reviewed, and then publish the reviews. Ernie vicariously threw himself into this new position. He visited London and approached publishers. While there, he travelled in artistic and literary circles and knew Graham Greene, Maura Laverty, Louis le Brocquy, Henry Moore, John Piper, W. R. Rodgers, and John Rothenstein, He did research for the articles on art he wrote on Mexican, British, and Irish art and for his reflections on Ireland. At this time Ernie corresponded with James Johnson Sweeney of the Museum of Modern Art about the possibility of exhibiting Irish modern art in the US, but no specific plans were developed. In 1950 Sweeney, MacGreevy and O’Malley were all representatives of their respective countries at the International Association of Art Critics (AICA). Sadly, when the AICA met in Dublin in 1953, Ernie was too sick to attend. In 1947 he was elected Secretary of the Irish Academy of Letters and became a member of the Irish P.E.N. His poem ‘County Mayo’ was included in the New Verse Anthology for P.E.N. published by Tablot Press. In his early years, Ernie read works by James Joyce, such as The Dubliners and his articles in the Paris Review. Even in his 1928 visit to New York, Ernie researched Joyce, reading reviews of his works. In January 1948 Ernie attended Joyce’s ‘Exiles’ in the Gaiety Theatre and soon thereafter started to prepare his personal compendium of Joyce’s significant words and themes in Ulysses. He filled three large notebooks with these words. By the end of the summer of 1948, he was heavily committed to his military interview project which would last for over six years. Given his family circumstances with Helen’s ending the lease on their Dublin home, her moving to London and New York and his return to Mayo, Ernie had little time in Dublin to continue his endeavours. He did loan thirty-eight works of his art collection to Robert Herbert at the Limerick Library Gallery from 1948 to 1954. In the 1950s Ernie played a far more limited role in the arts due to his preoccupation with his military history project, poor financial position, and weak health. In September 1950, he was extremely disappointed when his London publisher refused to republish On Another Man’s Wound as it would have lessened his financial difficulties. In October, he was hopeful that he would be ‘able to finish this [photographic] work for my sculpture is more than half unfinished and would need another two years…but the Tan and Civil War must be done now for the men are dying fast.’ 8 He helped John Ford, as a technical advisor, on two films, The Quiet Man in 1951 and The Rising of the Moon in 1956. In 1953 he had a massive heart attack and later reconnected with Paul Strand then living in Paris. During this period his health declined, and he was only able to afford one piece of art, a painting by Caroline Scally. In fact he was so financially strapped he had to sell some land at Burrishoole. Ernie managed to get to Paris during his younger son’s spring holidays so Cormac could practise his French, and Ernie could visit his own friends, Sam Beckett, Barbara Myers and Paul Strand. From 1954 to 1956 he took Cormac each summer to the Aran Islands to learn Irish. When Evie Hone died in 1955, he wrote a friend: ‘She was the best glass worker in Western Europe. I had told her about some of the figure sculptures from the 12 th to the 15 th century. She had been able to make drawings and to feel this material in her glass work.’ 9 Ernie then assumed the mantle of organising a memorial exhibition of her work which ultimately came to pass in 1958 after his death. Over the years Ernie amassed a library - with over 3,000 volumes - on many subjects including art history, art guides, archaeology, history, literature, music, and travel. However, to help his financial position he sold part of his library at Sothebys in London. After Ernie’s death in 1957, his family continued his tradition of loaning paintings to exhibits, and many of his significant paintings included in this auction have been seen over the years in England, Holland, Ireland, Italy, and the United States. 1 Ernie O’Malley, On Another Man’s Wound (London: Rich & Cowan,1936; Cork: Mercier Press, 2013), 143. 2 Ernie O’Malley, ibid, 262. 3 Ernie O’Malley, The Singing Flame (Cork: Mercier Press, 2012), 61. 4 Ernie O’Malley, Flame, 241. 5 Cormac O’Malley and Nicholas Allen, eds. Broken Landscapes: Selected Letters of Ernie O’Malley, 1924-1957 (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 2011), 110. 6 C O’Malley, Broken Landscapes, 152. 7 Ibid, 165. 8 Letter, Ernie O’Malley to James Johnson Sweeney, October 1951, Cormac O’Malley Personal Papers. 9 Ernie O’Malley, Broken Landscapes, 331.