WHYTE'S AUTUM ONLINE ART SALE Ends 5 October 2020

150 141 Markey Robinson (1918-1999) FIGURES BY COTTAGES AND TREE and FIVE FIGURES (A PAIR) oil pastel and ink on buff-coloured paper; (2) one signed with initials lower left; with provenance on reverse 5.50 by 7in. (14 by 17.8cm) Dimensions of Frame: 7.5 by 9.5in. (19 by 24cm) Condition: Figures by Cottages and Tree: Paper in good condition, minor ripple visible on close inspection. Five Figures: Ripple to paper visible throughout. Tear approx 1.25in to lower left corner. Some spotting visible. Framed and mounted uniformly. Provenance: Formerly in the collection of Zoltan Lewinter-Frankl (1894-1961); Private collection Dimensions of Five Figures, 6.5 by 4.25in (frame size: 11 by 8.5in.) Framed uniformly. Zoltan Lewinter-Frankl was Northern Ireland’s only significant private patron of fine art throughout the 1940s and early 1950s, during the time that the post-war movement in Irish art was taking shape. He was a key source of support for artists such as Gerard Dillon, Daniel O’Neill, Colin Middleton, Markey Robinson and Jack Yeats, and went on to buy the work of the generation that followed them, which included Basil Blackshaw and T P Flanagan. When CEMA (the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts, which would later become the Arts Council of Northern Ireland) organised its first touring exhibition of Contemporary Ulster Paintings to be shown in Scotland in 1951, thirty-seven of the forty-one works in the show came from the Frankl collection. Zoltan Frankl was born in Hungary in 1894 and was educated in Budapest. After service with a German Hussar regiment in the First WorldWar (during which he was awarded the Iron Cross), he went to work in the wool and knitwear industry in Vienna. In 1924 he married Anny Lewinter, who owned a couture knitwear business, and by 1930 the couple were running a substantial factory. Following Germany’s 1938 annexation of Austria, the Lewinter-Frankls, as Jews, were forced to flee the country for London. While in London, however, they were assiduously courted by the Northern Irish government, which had passed the New Industries Development Act in 1937 to encourage rural-based industries. The Lewinter-Frankls were invited to Belfast, and Sir Basil Brooke persuaded them to stay and set up textile factories. Frankl began collecting art almost as soon as he arrived in Northern Ireland. In 1944 he lent 39 pictures to a travelling exhibition of Ulster. All were Irish in origin including works by Nathaniel Hone, William Leech, Sean Keating and Jack B. Yeats. Also represented were William Conor, Hans Iten, Tom Carr and Paul Nietsche. In 1958 the Belfast Museum staged an exhibition of the highlights of Frankl’s collection, and the catalogue ran to 248 works. Frankl was particularly friendly with Markey Robinson, whom he described in a catalogue introduction as ‘the most amazing personality I have met for some time’. He also described Markey as Ireland’s greatest artist in an arts magazine in 1948. Zoltan Lewinter-Frankl died in 1961. A portrait of Zoltan by his friend Paul Nietsche was gifted to the Ulster Museum in his memory. approx.) €200-€400 (£180-£360 approx.) Click here for more images and to bid on this lot141