IMPORTANT IRISH ART 1 DECEMBER 2025

106 74 Donald Teskey RHA (b.1956) LONGSHORE acrylic on paper signed lower right 30.25 by 41.25in. (76.8 by 104.8cm) Frame Size: 38.25 by 49.75in. (97.2 by 126.4cm) When Donald Teskey accepted an invitation from the Ballinglen Arts Foundation in the village of Ballycastle on the North Mayo coast in the mid-1990s, it wasn’t clear how important the region would become for his painting. In fact, he had only begun painting in earnest a few years previously. Before that, he was best known as a virtuoso draughtsman. Ever since graduating from Limerick School of Art and Design, with a final year show that consisted of intriguing, atmospheric drawings of anomalous urban spaces, backstreets and neglected corners of wasteland, shot through with a certain eerie quality, a sense of mystery, he’d explored the possibilities of drawing, creating works that, especially when he used charcoal, were like monochrome paintings. He was living in Dublin at the time and that provided the material for his work: urban landscapes. Then, through the 1990s, he applied himself seriously to painting and began to make working trips to the West coast, spanning a great deal of the western seaboard. Somehow it was Mayo that proved enduringly important. Why? Desolately beautiful as it is, it provided him with what he needed to develop his own painterly language. There are recognisable locations and landmarks in some of his work, but in a real sense what counts in the end is the sameness of the vast, elemental spaces: the relentless, tidal ocean, the pulverised rocky shoreline, the non-stop conveyor belt of alternating cloud and rain and sunlight. This hard environment frames a perpetual drama that fuels Teskey’s painting process. Not to say that is not important, in the way that Monet’s waterlily pond or Cézanne’s Mont Ste-Victoire were important. But the magic is in the painting, not in the waterlilies or the rugged mountain. That applies to Teskey as well: the setting facilitates the painting. His working method incorporates on-site photographs, video and sketches, and he uses a range of implements to apply pigment. One can sense the urgency and immediacy of the process in the finished works. His work is much sought after and he is regarded as one of the outstanding Irish landscape painters of his generation. Aidan Dunne, November 2025. €18,000-€22,000 (£15,790-£19,300 approx.) Click here for more images and to bid on this lot74