IMPORTANT IRISH ART 25 MAY 2026

60 34 John Luke RUA (1906-1975) THE MOURNES, 1939 oil on board signed and dated lower left; with John Magee and Arts Council of Northern Ireland labels on reverse 15 by 21.25in. (38.1 by 54cm) Frame Size: 19 by 26in. (48.3 by 66cm) Provenance: Collection of the late Mr J. C. Sheridan; Thence by descent Exhibited: ‘Ulster Artists Exhibition: The Work of John Luke’, Belfast Museum and Art Gallery, Belfast, 4-28 September 1946, catalogue no. 10; ’John Luke (1906-1975)’, Ulster Museum, Belfast, 27 January to 4 March 1978, catalogue no. 40, with tour to Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin This landscape painting by John Luke was one of his first major works of the 1930s. It was shown at the 1946 Luke exhibition at the Belfast Museum and Art Gallery and in the Luke retrospective that took place in Belfast’s Ulster Museum and Dublin’s Douglas Hyde Gallery in 1978 (no. 40). It was more than likely bought after the 1946 exhibition by J.C. Sheridan, a prominent Belfast businessman. Sheridan would become an important patron of Luke’s, amassing a small but significant collection of his work. Born into the working-class heartland of inner-city Belfast at the end of the industrial revolution, John Luke escaped the brutal world of life in the city’s factories to train as an artist at Belfast School of Art. From his enrolment in 1923 he won various awards including a special prize at the RDS Taylor Art Competition as well as the Dunville and Sorella Art scholarships. The latter enabled him to travel to London in 1927 and enrol at the prestigious Slade School of Art. Upon returning to Belfast in 1930, Luke found it difficult to sell his work. He became depressed and later confessed to his friend John Hewitt the poet, art critic and museum curator, that ‘in desperation I turned to flowers as a way out’ (Letter dated 7 January 1950; Hewitt coll., PRONI). A series of striking still lifes from this period, that juxtapose modernist textiles, ceramics and other props with delicate floral arrangements, attracted few buyers. One painting entitled Daffodils (1937; Priv. coll.) also on display at the 1946 Belfast show was bought by Sheridan. In the early 1930s Hewitt suggested to Luke that he should try his hand at landscape painting. Luke sketched in the Mournes, Co. Down and then in Achill, Co. Mayo. Achill’s Slievemore and the Mourne’s Slieve Donard began to feature regularly in his work. Motifs such as the jutting mountains, rolling hills and glassy lakes, often in rich, primary colours, also appear in his landscapes and later fantastical figure compositions. Sheridan bought two of these, The Dancer and the Bubble (1947; Priv. coll.) and Landscape with Figures (1948; Priv. coll.). When the former was on display at Victor Waddington’s Gallery in Dublin, Luke wrote to Sheridan that the painting was still available and photographs would be sent soon (Letter dated 24 November 1947; Priv coll.). Clearly Sheridan’s support was as critical to Luke as that of Hewitt or Waddington. Dr Joseph McBrinn, Belfast School of Art April, 2026 €60,000-€80,000 (£52,170-£69,570 approx.) Click here for more images and to bid on this lot34 Fig. 1. The Mournes displayed (second from right, above) at Belfast Museum and Art Gallery, 4th-28th September 1946; Priv. coll.)