IRISH & INTERNATIONAL ART 29 SEPTEMBER 2025

60 42 Louis le Brocquy HRHA (1916-2012) TINKER CHILDREN AT A FAIR, 1946 watercolour with ink signed lower right; with Dawson Gallery framing label on reverse 11 by 9.25in. (27.9 by 23.5cm) Frame Size: 19 by 16in. (48.3 by 40.6cm) Provenance: Acquired by private treaty through James Adam’s Saleroom, Dublin, 1978; Private collection The Tinker Period in le Brocquy’s oeuvre represents a very important and distinct body of work within the artist’s career spanning the years c.1945-1948. Tinker Children at a Fair is a striking early example of the artist’s interpretation of the travelling community and captures aptly his enthusiasm and passion for their independent and inimitable way of life. It was the summer previous to the execution of this work when le Brocquy first encountered the tinkers near Tullamore, County Offaly and like John Millington Synge and artists on the Continent such as Picasso, le Brocquy’s interest in this particular society was born out of a wider re-discovery and renewed interest in “primitive” cultures. However, for le Brocquy the tinkers came to symbolise more; the individual’s struggle against ordered and settled culture and he drew parallels between their struggle and that of the artist. Tinker Children at a Fair typifies the artist’s style from the period in colour and composition. The children, who dominate the work, all actively engage the viewer each with an inquisitive and lively gaze. The background comprises other figures; a horse and rider, and a stationary male figure and cow, but these presences are cropped by the artist’s cut-off composition, rendering their presence in the work secondary to that of the children. The children carry sticks in their hands perhaps a reference to the ritual of sign making in tinker culture. Le Brocquy, in an interview with Yvonne Scott, 28 April, 2006, commented, “...People were always suspicious of them and they had to contend with that and they had various ways of contending with it. Amongst others they made signs for each other when they left the sites. They left ‘twig’ signs behind them and some of these were of a prosaic kind, such as: there are some good chickens up there in the bohereen - that kind of thing. But other signs were made to cast spells, so that local farmers hesitated to disturb them.” In 2007 images from his Tinker period were used for Dublin’s Pavee Point Travellers Centre calendar published in association with Ireland Embracing Cultural Diversity. Paintings from this period can be found in the collection at the Tate, London and the National Gallery of Ireland, among others. €15,000-€20,000 (£13,040-£17,390 approx.) Click here for more images and to bid on this lot42