WHYTE'S IRISH & INTERNATIONAL ART 27th September 2021 at 6pm

62 43 Patrick Collins HRHA (1910-1994) APPLES, 1961 oil on board with Ritchie Hendriks Gallery and Arts Council labels on reverse 15.25 by 19.75in. (38.7 by 50.2cm) Frame Dimensions: 21 by 25in. (53.3 by 63.5cm) Excellent condition. Provenance: Ritchie Hendriks Gallery, Dublin, 1961; Collection of Sir Basil Goulding; Tom Caldwell Galleries, Dublin, 1982; Private collection Exhibited: Ritchie Hendriks Gallery, August 1971, catalogue no. 7; ’Irish Imagination’, ROSC 1971, catalogue no. 14; ’Patrick Collins: Retrospective Exhibition’, Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, touring exhibition, Cork, Dublin and Belfast, 1982, catalogue no. 12 Sir William Basil Goulding (1909–1982) was an Irish cricketer, squash player, art collector and prominent businessman. Goulding was the founding Chairperson of the Contemporary Irish Art Society in 1962, along with Gordon Lambert, Cecil King, Stanley Mosse, James White and Michael Scott. The enthusiasm and vision of these founding members of the society was the catalyst which led to the development of many important art collections in Ireland. The purpose of the society was to encourage a greater level of patronage of living Irish artists which, at the time, was extremely low. This was mainly achieved by raising funds to purchase artworks by living artists, which were then donated to public collections. The first purchase in 1962 was an important painting by Patrick Scott, donated to the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art. Over the following 12 years the society purchased 37 works for the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery, until in 1974, Dublin Corporation started to provide an annual purchasing fund for the gallery. Following a trip to Brittany, Patrick Collins exhibited his first paintings based on Bronze Age standing stones, menhirs, at the Ritchie Hendriks Gallery in 1961. They became a staple subject for him in the following years in a long, intermittent series of paintings. Given the nature and development of his work one can see why he was drawn to such durable stone presences in the landscape. This exceptional still life also featured in that show, from which it was purchased by Basil Goulding. Audaciously simple in its format, the stark, unadorned study of two apples is atmospherically rich in a way that is characteristic of Collins at his best. It has often been noted that he did not so much paint objects as the aura and spaces around them. Here, the overlapping central forms have a monumental, rugged density that complements the fruits’ fragile transience, indicated by the flush of light and colour. Typically, the light seems to radiate from them, rather than falling upon them. As Collins paints them, they are as heroic and timeless as megaliths. Born in Dromore West in Sligo, Collins forever identified with his early years of freedom in the wild rural landscape. He was temperamentally unsuited to be a teenage boarder at St Vincent’s Orphanage in Glasnevin. Later, working as a clerk in Dublin he gravitated towards the world of art and literature. Living in a tower in Howth Castle, he thought of writing and took art lessons. As he recalled, by the beginning of the 1950s he began to find his way in