IRISH & INTERNATIONAL ART 29 SEPTEMBER 2025

86 The painter, Louis le Brocquy (1916-2012) and the writer, nobel prize winner Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) were acquainted with each other. Beckett was the subject of numerous portrait heads by le Brocquy, carried out in the latter decades of the twentieth century as the painter explored how to represent the creative process of celebrated practitioners, like Beckett, through the means of visual expression. Le Brocquy’s paintings had evolved into the portrait series of creative individuals, like Beckett, following the ‘Ancestral Head’ images that emerged from his visit to the anthropological museum, the Musée de l’Homme in Paris in 1964. During the early part of that decade, the artist had gone through a period in which he was unhappy with his work, destroying many canvases that failed to meet his creative aspirations. However, the museum included exhibits that focused le Brocquy’s attention on the generational links from the present to the past. This series of artworks led, over time, to the artist’s exploration of the capacity and processes of the human imagination. From the mid 1970s the artist created a series of portrait heads representing creative individuals that he admired or knew personally, from Shakespeare to Bono; the series included, among others, images of W.B. Yeats, James Joyce, Francis Bacon, Seamus Heaney, and Samuel Beckett. Louis le Brocquy’s process typically involved returning repeatedly to selected subject figures on the basis that a single image was insufficient to capture the multiple dimensions of creativity. John Russell (1919-2008), the art-critic and journalist, writing on le Brocquy’s practice, advised how an artist could make multiple images of a sitter, and that “…we no longer accept the idea of human personality as something that has a unified existence and can be captured in a single image.” 1 Consequently, le Brocquy carried out several images of Samuel Beckett, such as the six canvases that were exhibited at Rosc ‘80. The portrait paintings of creative individuals typically bear features in common: the focus on the disembodied head, painted as though emerging from a white ground, the application of different tones to represent the face, the painterly method of execution, and the recognisability of the subject. Despite such common features, each image draws out a different aspect of the nature of the subject. In the current painting, Beckett’s features are familiar, notably the ‘arctic blue’ colour of his eyes and the craggy bone structure of the face. However, this painting focuses particularly on the eyes, which seem absorbed in some inner process, while the dark, deep sockets infer a haunting vulnerability and empathy. In discussing the development of the series, le Brocquy described the head as “the mysterious box which contains the spirit: the outer reality of the invisible interior world of consciousness.” 2 There are certain similarities in their lives: Louis le Brocquy and Samuel Beckett were each born in Dublin, and each lived for an extended time in France, though Beckett was based primarily in Paris and le Brocquy in the south of France. Their creative capacity has been recognised in various ways. Samuel Beckett was awarded the Prix International in 1961 (jointly with Jorge Luis Borges), and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1969. He was elected to Aosdána at its establishment in 1981, and was the first Saoi in 1984. 3 Louis le Brocquy represented Ireland at the Venice Biennale in 1956, was awarded Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur in 1975, and received the Freedom of the City of Dublin in 2007. Like Beckett, he was one of the originating artists in Aosdána in 1981, and subsequently elevated to Saoi in 1992. Dr Yvonne Scott, August, 2025 Footnotes: 1 John Russell, ‘Introduction’, in Dorothy Walker, Louis le Brocquy, Ward River Press, Dublin, 1981, p 14. 2 Louis le Brocquy, ‘Notes on painting and awareness’, in Dorothy Walker, ibid., p 139. 3 Aosdána, founded in 1981, and administered by the Arts Council of Ireland, is an autonomous affiliation of artists (visual arts, literature, music, choreography, architecture), established to honour and support practitioners who have made an outstanding contribution to the arts in Ireland. Within the maximum 250 members, up to seven Saoithe are honoured for their exceptional and sustained role. €100,000-€150,000 (£86,960-£130,430 approx.) Click here for more images and to bid on this lot61