IMPORTANT IRISH ART 3 MARCH 2025

36 This was formerly thought to be a view of Clare Island from Achill (Kennedy 2007, p.230), but now, with a larger image than was available in the past, the view is almost certainly of Moyteoge and Achill Head, seen from the Keel to Dooagh road. Certainly the twin peaks to the left and the profile of the mountains are similar to those in Henry’s Paysage Sinistre, 1914-15 (Kennedy, number 406), which also depicts the scene, and the accompanying photograph which was taken from further south at Killeenabausty on Achill’s Atlantic Drive. The predominating mountain must therefore be Croaghaun and the barely indicated stretch of beach to the right, where the high ground meets the sea, is Keem Strand. West of Ireland Landscape is dated 1925-35 on stylistic grounds and the strong colours and moderate impasto of the paint in the foreground are typical of Henry’s work at that time. Time and again Henry made paintings in his studio from sketches done much earlier. He often, too, painted variations on a theme. A characteristic of his output from about 1916-18 onwards, as in this picture, is an absence of people as he grew more interested in the landscape per se. And yet his ubiquitous cottages and turf stacks evoke a redolence of humanity and of our relationship to the very ground that supports us. Again, as here, Henry’s compositions often have a sense of timelessness which lends a gentle feeling of monumentality to his work. Dr S. B. Kennedy