WHYTE'S IMPORTANT IRISH ART 28 November 2022 at 6pm

56 31 Mainie Jellett (1897-1944) COMPOSITION, 1936 oil on canvas signed and dated lower right; signed and titled on reverse 38 by 32in. (96.5 by 81.3cm) Frame Size: 39 by 33in. (99.1 by 83.8cm) Composition 1936 was executed thirteen years after Mainie Jellett first exposed art audiences in Ireland to abstraction at the Society of Dublin Painters exhibition in autumn of 1923. It was widely condemned by critics at that time. This sizable oil on canvas example is characteristic of her style in the 1930s when she had moved away from the pure abstraction of the 1920s towards the semi-abstract figurative style seen here. Although the title does not indicate a religious subject matter, elements of the composition - the central figure/s flanked harmoniously upper left and right by similar shapes and radiating line and colour - echo themes such as the crucifixion or the Madonna and child. Jellett and her friend, fellow artist Evie Hone, were both deeply religious people and the inclusion of this very familiar narrative in their oeuvre aided Irish audiences in their interpretation of this new visual language. By the end of the 1930s Jellett and her contemporaries had succeeded in making Modernism not only palatable to Irish audiences but relevant to the establishment which, under Éamon de Valera, understood the importance of being seen to be ‘Modern’. In 1938 Jellett’s work was selected to decorate the Irish Pavilion at the GlasgowWorld Fair and the following year in New York alongside Hone. Composition 1936 was painted just before this watershed moment in Jellet’s career and in Irish art history. Adelle Hughes, November 2022 For another example by Mainie Jellett and a concise biography see lot 32. €25,000-€35,000 (£21,550-£30,170 approx.) Click here for more images and to bid on this lot31