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

58 32 Mainie Jellett (1897-1944) ABSTRACT COMPOSITION gouache 18 by 15.50in. (45.7 by 39.4cm) Frame Size: 24 by 21.5in. (61 by 54.6cm) An abstract and figure painter, Jellett started to take watercolour lessons as a young girl, later working under Sarah Cecilia Harrison and May Manning. She entered the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art in 1914 while William Orpen was teaching there. Three years later she went to study at the Westminster Art School in London with Walter Sickert. It was there that she met Evie Hone who became a lifelong friend. In 1920 she won the Taylor Scholarship and this money allowed her to travel to Paris with Hone, where they worked in André Lhote’s studio. Here they had their first taste of Cubism, however, after a while they both decided to move into the realm of pure abstract painting and transferred to work with Albert Gleizes. On her return to Ireland, Jellett continued to visit him during the summer for the next ten years. In Dublin she gave painting lessons from her home and began to exhibit her cubist paintings, which received hostile criticism from George Russell. During the 1920s she exhibited regularly at the Dublin Painter’s Gallery while also showing at several exhibitions in Paris. Her art developed a greater realism in the 1930s and also became more religious in subject matter. She exhibited at the RHA from 1930 to 1937 while at the same time contributing to the Watercolour Society of Ireland until 1943. She became a leader in the modern movement in Ireland and joined the avant-garde group of painters, the White Stag, in 1940, regularly lecturing and exhibiting with them. She exhibited in the first ever Irish Exhibition of Living Art, where she had been appointed chairman but was unable to attend as she fell ill and died a short time later. Her works are in all the major Irish collections. For another example by Mainie Jellett see lot 31. €8,000-€12,000 (£6,900-£10,340 approx.) Click here for more images and to bid on this lot32