WHYTE'S IRISH & INTERNATIONAL ART Monday 7 March 2022 from 6PM

94 69 Louis le Brocquy HRHA (1916-2012) ADAM, 1999 Aubusson Tapestry, Atelier Tabard Frères et Soeurs, France; (no. 6 from an edition of 9) signed on weaver’s label on reverse 79 by 54.50in. (200.7 by 138.4cm) Provenance: Jonathan Swift Gallery, Carrickfergus; Private collection; Whyte’s, 22 March 2021, lot 64; Private collection : Adam is one of three works from le Brocquy’s Garden tapestries series (1999-2001) - Eve and Uccello completing the trio - which draws inspiration from the 15th century artist Paolo Uccello’s set of three paintings, The Battle of San Romano. le Brocquy’s relationship with the medium began in 1948 when he was one of a number of painters in London invited to design tapestries for Edinburgh Tapestry Weavers. The result was Travellers 1948, a magnificent work measuring 180 by 100 cm exhibited originally by the Arts Council in London in 1950. The following year a further commission from an established patron, Mrs. S.H. Stead-Ellis, included three tapestries on the theme of the Garden of Eden - Adam and Eve in the Garden, Eden and Cherub. Dorothy Walker notes, “...He treated the theme with archetypal imagery in a classical, even traditional manner, the sun and the moon appearing respectively in the male and female spheres. The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil appears as in traditional French mediaeval tapestry with the birds and butterflies among its leaves, but he adds a surrealist aspect with eyes as well as leaves (as befits a tree of knowledge) and fish swimming in its branches.”Walker considered Eden to be “...one of le Brocquy’s most interesting works.” (1) le Brocquy was stimulated and excited by the medium. He described how he “found [tapestry] ...a kind of recreation, involving completely different problems, it is refreshing in the sense that one is exhausted in a different way. There is also another aspect of it which is very exciting to the painter ... [the tapestry] always comes out a little different from what he had imagined and sometimes he has wonderful surprises. The method I use is a system of notation, a linear design which is numbered in the colours of a range of wools. Although one can visualise what one is doing, to a certain extent, when the tapestry is palpably there this causes an independent birth of something, and that is so contrary to the whole involved process of painting that it is rather refreshing.” (2) It comes as little surprise that, at the age of 83, le Brocquy returned to the medium and to the Eden theme. This time the artist pares back the figure of Adam to an otherworldly shape - recalling his Human Image series (1996-2005) - and sets him against a dense backdrop of oranges and foliage, a nod to his earlier Adam and Eve in the Garden, 1951-52 and Uccello’s depiction of same in The Battle of San Romano. Walker describes how the “...recurrent depiction of the fruit haunted le Brocquy who described them as... appearing like small suns from their dark foliage, very much as I saw them a little later, unbelievably exotic, blazing from their small trees on the sidewalks of the frontier town of Menton in 1939.” (3) The present work is testament to the artist’s energy and enthusiasm for a subject and relentless pursuit of excellence in the discipline of tapestry. Adelle Hughes February 2022 1 .https://www.anne-madden.com/LeBPages/Tapestry90thcelebration-b.html 2. Ibid. 3. Ibid. €30,000-€40,000 (£25,420-£33,900 approx.) Click here for more images and to bid on this lot69