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76 68 Louis le Brocquy HRHA (1916-2012) TWO STUDIES TOWARDS AN IMAGE OF JAMES JOYCE, 1982 (DIPTYCH) watercolour and crayon; (2); (framed together) signed, inscribed with title, medium, dimensions, date and location [New York] on reverse; also with artist’s archival number [W. 653] on reverse 17.25 by 14.25in. (43.8 by 36.2cm) Frame: 23 by 35.5in. (58 by 90cm.) Condition: Painting is in overall very good stable condition. Mount board appears to be original and is unlikely to be acid-free. Backing board to frame includes the artist’s description and shows some staining. It would be prudent for the future owner to replace the framing materials with conservation grade mount board etc to preserve the condition going forward. Provenance: Private Irish collection; Thence by descent to the present owner Louis le Brocquy’s critically acclaimed ‘Head’ series began in 1964, following a visit to the Musée de l’Homme, the anthropological museum, in Paris, marking a significant turning point for the artist. Le Brocquy was compelled by the idea of the head which he described as: ‘The mysterious box which contains the spirit: the outer reality of the invisible interior world of consciousness.’ (1) Initially, he created a series of anonymous ancestral heads - generalised images suggesting unnamed predecessors. Arising from that phase, the theme evolved into his series of portraits of well-known creative individuals, mainly writers and artists that he had met - like Samuel Beckett, James Joyce, John Montague, and (when le Brocquy was a child) WB Yeats but also some that he revered and knew from their work, such as James Joyce, with whom he identified as a fellow Dubliner. Le Brocquy’s portrait subjects involved several versions. The multiple representations of a single subject reflected his desire to capture something of their complexity and range. While clearly individualised portraits, this body of work demonstrates significant features in common. Each head emerges, disembodied, usually against a plain background. While the portrait subject is recognisable and readily identified, the heads have an intangible quality to suggest the character and creativity behind the surface reality of the face. The present work is remarkable in comprising of two studies of James Joyce, reflecting the concept of multiplicity and, as one appears more complete in terms of surface and tangibility than the other, suggesting the imaginative processes. Similarly, the different treatment of the eyes indicates both inward and outward vision. As the artist himself explained of his multiple images of Joyce: ‘It remains an unending task. For to attempt today a portrait, a single static image of a great artist like Joyce seems to me futile as well as impertinent.’ (2) Louis le Brocquy interpreted the writer’s creative output as a kind of quest or odyssey, noting how images of James Joyce induced: ‘those larger feelings of reverence, compassion and wonder which we all share in face of that unique boat-shaped head - the raised poop of the forehead, the jutting bow of the jaw - within which he made his heroic voyage, his navigatio.’ (3) Dr Yvonne Scott, June 2020 Louis le Brocquy, ‘Notes on painting and awareness’, in 1 Dorothy Walker (ed.), Louis le Brocquy, Dublin, 1981, p. 139. 2 Le Brocquy, op. cit., p. 151. 3 Le Brocquy, op. cit., p. 152. €30,000-€40,000 (£27,030-£36,040 approx.) Click here for more images and to bid on this lot68