WHYTE'S IMPORTANT IRISH ART Monday 11 March 2024 at 6pm

78 53 Daniel O’Neill (1920-1974) SUNSHOWER oil on panel signed lower right; titled on reverse 14 by 21in. (35.6 by 53.3cm) Frame Size: 18.25 by 25.25in. (46.4 by 64.1cm) Figures in a landscape is a recurring theme in the work of Dan O’Neill where, often, he registers a symbiotic, at times, unsettled and unsettling, relationship between figure and the natural environment. In ‘Sunshower’ a mother shelters her two children by her ‘Madonna’ blue cloak in the foreground of lush green/dark green vegetation. Her features are reminiscent of the peasant faces of the family at dinner in Van Gogh’s ‘Potato Eaters’, a work essentially about the dignity of labour. O’Neill would most likely have seen works by Van Gogh during his sojourn in Paris (1948/9) and also at the Van Gogh exhibition in London’s Tate Gallery in 1948. It may be observed, as well, that he painted a number of works as a homage to the Dutch artist, notably ‘On reading’ Dear Theo’’. The landscape here recedes by way of a series of oblique sections of land with some denuded and declamatory trees. There is a glimpse of the gable end of a white washed rural cottage in the background while the painting culminates in the depiction of a warm grey moisture-laden sky. Light is the great protagonist at work in this complex and dramatic composition. It lights up the stern face of the mother and is, at its most luminous, as it washes in orange and yellow pigment across what would appear to be a cornfield, ready for harvest. The bare branched trees conspire within the scenography. O’Neill produced a number of paintings of Harvest time. In ‘Harvester’s Picnic’, lot 40, Whyte’s, 27 September 2021, the moon lights up a stretch of the harvested cornfield. A standing female, in profile, stares out into the distant night. Like ‘Sunshower’ it teeters on the verge of the surreal, creating a magical, ominous atmospheric mood - a visionary dreamtime landscape. ‘Sunshower’ is a fine example of the artist’s work - multi-layered and psychologically charged and complex. Prof. Liam Kelly, February 2024 €20,000-€30,000 (£17,090-£25,640 approx.) Click here for more images and to bid on this lot53