Adams Important Irish Art Auction

Wednesday 29th May 2013 at 6.00pm
Est1887
Important Irish Art

Front Cover Paul henry Lot 21
Opposite Frank McKelvey Lot 62
Pages 2 & 3 Paul Henry Lot 22
Page 4 Gerard Dillon Lot 86
Page 7 Mildred Anne Butler Lot 49
Inside Back Cover Sean Keating Lot 32
Back Cover Walter Osborne Lot 44

Important Irish Art
Auction Wednesday 29th May 2013 at 6pm

AUCTION
Wednesday 29th May 2013 at 6.00pm
VENUE
Adam’s Salerooms
26 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2.
Ireland
VIEWING HIGHlIGHTS MAy 9TH
- 16TH
At The Ava Gallery, Clandeboye Estate, Bangor, Co. Down BT19 IRN
Monday - Friday 11.00am - 5.00pm
Saturday 11th
May 2.00pm - 5.00pm
Sunday 12th
May 2.00pm - 5.00pm
FUll SAlE VIEWING MAy 26TH
- 29TH
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Wednesday 29th May 10.00am - 5.00pm
Important Irish Art
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6
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Est1887

1. Estimates and Reserves
These are shown below each lot in this sale. All amounts shown are in Euro. The figures shown are provided merely as a guide to prospec-
tive purchasers. They are approximate prices which are expected, are not definitive and are subject to revision. Reserves, if any, will not be
any higher than the lower estimate.
2. Paddle Bidding
All intending purchasers must register for a paddle number before the auction. Please allow time for registration. Potential purchasers
are recommended to register on viewing days.
3. Payment, Delivery and Purchasers Premium
Thursday, 30th May 2013, 10.00am - 1.00pm and 2.00pm -5.00pm. Under no circumstances will delivery of purchases be given whilst
the auction is in progress. All purchases must be paid for and removed from the premises not later than 5pm on Thursday 30th May
2012. Auctioneers commission on purchases is charged at the rate of 20% (exclusive of VAT). Terms: Strictly cash, bankers draft or cheque
vouched to the satisfaction of the auctioneers, prior to sale. Purchasers wishing to pay by credit card (Visa & Mastercard) may do so,
however, it should be noted that such payments will be subject to an administrative fee of 1.85% on the invoice total. American Express
is subject to a charge of 3.65% on the invoice total. Please contact our accounts department prior to sale with your payment queries.
Artists Resale Rights (Droit de Suite) is not payable by purchasers.
4. VAT Regulations
All lots are sold within the auctioneers VAT margin scheme. Revenue Regulations require that the buyers premium must be invoiced at a
rate which is inclusive of VAT. This is not recoverable by any VAT registered buyer.
5. Please note that imperfections are not stated.
6. Absentee Bids
We are happy to execute absentee or written bids for bidders who are unable to attend and can arrange for bidding to be conducted
by telephone. However, these services are subject to special conditions (see conditions of sale in this catalogue). All arrangements for
absentee and telephone bidding must be made before 5pm on the day prior to sale.
7. Acknowledgments
We would like to acknowledge, with thanks, the assistance of Dr. S.B.Kennedy, Karen Reihill, Dickon Hall, Dr. Julian Campbell, Dr. Róisín
Kennedy, Dr Eimear O’Connor, Dr. Denise Ferran, Niamh McNally, Marianne O’Kane Boal, and Katharine Crouan whose help and research
were invaluable in compiling many of the catalogue entries.
8. All lots are being sold under the Conditions of Sale as printed in this catalogue and on display in the salerooms.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR PURCHASERS

Important Irish Art, wednesday 29th May 2013 at 6pm
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1 Grace Henry RHA RUA (1876-1958)
The Piper
Oil on canvas, 30.5 x 25.5cm (12 x 10”)
Signed
Provenance: Brook Street Art Gallery, London
Exhibited: “Grace Henry - The Person and Artist” Loan Exhibition, Jorgenson Fine Art, January 2010
Literature: “Grace Henry - The Person and Artist” 2010, illustrated p37
€3,000 - 5,000

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2 Dorothy Blackham (1896-1975)
Procession at Lucca
Oil on board, 36 x 66cm (14 x 26”)
Signed, inscribed artist’s label verso
€800 - 1,200
3 Dorothy Blackham (1896-1975)
The Old Town Orvie
Oil on board, 24 x 15cm (9½ x 6”)
Inscribed artist’s label verso
€400 - 600

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4 Gladys Maccabe HRUA ROI FRSA (b.1918)
Donaghadee Harbour, August 1956
Oil on board, 64 x 79cm (25¼ x 31¼”)
Signed; Inscribed artist’s label verso
Provenance: From the collection of the sculptor, Angela, Countess of Antrim (1911-1984) and thence by
descent to the current owners
Exhibited: The Royal Ulster Academy 1956. Cat. No. 68, where purchased by the Countess of Antrim
€4,000 - 6,000

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5 Mainie Jellett (1897-1944)
Study for ‘A Woman’ (1937)
Gouache, 23.5 x 12cm (9¼ x 4¾”)
Provenance: Jorgensen Fine Art, Dublin where
purchased by current owner
€2,000 - 4,000
Rug Design
Gouache, 30 x 14cm (11¾ x 5½”)
Provenance: Jorgensen Fine Art, Dublin where
purchased by current owner
€1,500 - 2,500

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Abstract Composition
Gouache, 20 x 19cm (8 x 7½”)
Provenance: From the artist’s family by descent. Sold by them in 1987 to raise funds for
the “Mainie Jellett Fund” that provides grants to assist Irish students from TCD and
NCAD to travel abroad and study works of art.
Exhibited : “Mainie Jellett Exhibition”, November/December 1987,The Taylor
Galleries, Cat. No. 15
Summer Exhibition, Jorgensen Fine Art, Dublin, 1999, Cat. No. 18 where
purchased by current owner.
Literature : Mainie Jellett 1987 Catalogue - Front cover illustration
This early work by Jellett from 1922 is a study for a large oil of the same year, exhibited
with the Independents in Paris in 1923, being one of four works Jellett exhibited that
year.
€2,000 - 4,000

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note of drama to the painting while celebrating the poetic
aspects of nature. Both suggest the simplicity of rural life.
McGuinness makes these familiar motifs contemporary
through the strong flattened patterning of the forms which
is ultimately derived from cubism, a style which she had
learnt in Paris in the studio of André Lhote at the end of
1920s and which continued to resonate in her work into
the 1960s. Cubism enabled her to simplify the subject
and to create decorative and almost abstract responses to
the subject. The subtle delineation of foliage, berries and
branches and the use of strong blocks of colour are typical
of the artist’s unmistakable style. They reveal an acute
awareness of the natural world, the product of a passionate
interest in gardening and more significantly a long career
spent developing a keen appreciation of landscape. She
avoids any of the clichés of traditional touristic imagery
in her representation of Ireland. This made McGuinness’s
work attractive to the Arts Council and to collectors in the
1960s. The Startled Bird is an excellent example of her late
work at its most expressive.
Dr. Roisin Kennedy
1. James White, Irish Times, 10 November 1961.
€20,000 - 30,000
8 Norah McGuinness HRHA (1901-1980)
The Startled Bird (1961)
Signed and Dated 1961
Provenance: Acquired directly from the artist in 1961 by
a friend; as it was his daughter depicted in the woods, and
thence by descent to the current owner.The location of the
wood is the south side of Carrickgollogan near the artists
home.
Exhibited: RHA Annual Exhibition 1961, Dublin, Cat.
No. 41 (NFS),
Exposition de la Peinture Contemporaine
Irlandaise, Monaco, 1962,
Twelve Irish Painters-An Exhibition of Irish
Modern Art, New York, 1963,
Norah McGuinness Retrospective,Trinity
College Dublin, 1968, Cat. No. 63
Norah McGuinness’s work went through a great resurgence
in the early 1960s when she produced some of her most
accomplished paintings. In 1961 she had a very successful
show at the Dawson Gallery. James White reviewing it
in the Irish Times described it as ‘undoubtedly her finest
exhibition’.1
The Startled Bird, exhibited that year at the
RHA, can clearly be related to the works in this show. Its
inclusion in international exhibitions of modern Irish art
organised by the Arts Council indicate the regard in which
it was held by the art establishment at the time.
Inspired by her frequent sojourns in the countryside, the
work evokes through its patterning of rich colours and
stark forms, the physical sensation of woodland. The figure
of the young girl and the blackbird in the foreground add a

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9 Alicia Boyle RBA (1908-1997)
‘Pink Ladders and Pear Orchard’ and ‘Cold Spring’
A pair, oil on canvas, 35 x 46cm (13¾ x 18”) each
Signed with initials, also signed and inscribed verso (2)
€800 - 1,200
10 Evie Hone, HRHA (1894-1955)
Stained Glass Design (Thérèse of Lisieux)
Monotype, 28 x 10cm (11 x 4”)
Provenance: The Dawson Gallery, label verso
€500 - 800

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11 Norah McGuinness HRHA (1901-1980)
Western Landscape
Oil on canvas, 71 x 102cm (28 x 40”)
Signed and dated 1963
€6,000 - 10,000

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12 Eva Henrietta Hamilton (1876-1960)
The Lifting Bridge, Monasterevin
Oil on canvas, 77 x 63.5cm (30¼ x 25”)
Provenance: The artist’s family.
Exhibited: Collector’s Eye Exhibition, Model Arts and Niland Gallery Sligo, January/February
2004,The Hunt Museum Limerick, March/April 2004, Cat. No. 6
Literature: The Collector’s Eye 2004, illustrated p.4
This is the view of the ‘Lifting Bridge’ still in operation and the Church of St Peter and Paul
in Monasterevin in the distance
€5,000 - 8,000

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13 Estella Frances Solomons, HRHA (1882-1968)
Pierrot
Exhibited: Estella Solomons Exhibition,The Crawford Gallery, Cork 1986, Cat. No. 25
Estella Solomons Retrospective Exhibition,The Frederick Gallery, Dublin November 1999, Cat. No. 2
A sketch for this painting but without the china horse is included in the Solomons Papers in Trinity College, Dublin (Ref. 4520, p.41)
€6,000 - 8,000

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14 Patrick Hennessy RHA (1915-1980)
In the Studio
Oil on board, 45.5 x 35.5cm (18 x 14”)
Signed, inscribed with artist’s label verso
Provenance: Property of a deceased estate, Northern Ireland
€4,000 - 6,000

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15 Leo Whelan RHA (1892-1956)
A Kitchen Interior with Maid
Signed, with a sketch of a chemist’s shop interior verso
Provenance: From the Collection of Francis Murnaghan, Baltimore and his sale, Christies “Irish Sale” May 2004,
Cat.No. 161, where purchased by current owner
€7,000 - 10,000

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16 William Conor RHA RUA (1884-1968)
In the Street
Mixed media, 42 x 30½ cm (16½ x 12”) signed
Together with a woodcut version of the work produced by The Linen
Hall Library, 1986 and numbered 5/300 (2)
Provenance: The original work is thought to have been acquired in the
1940s and thence by descent to current owners
€2,000 - 4,000

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A Sunny Day on the Doorstep
Crayon, 47 x 36cm (18½ x 14”)
Gallery stamp verso - J.J. McGuigan, 34 Berry Street, Belfast.
Provenance: Thought to have been acquired in the 1940s and thence by descent
to current owners
€7,000 - 10,000

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The Irish Scene. Belfast. Derek MacCord. 1944.
Folio. p.p.26. 12 Full page illustrations, 6 in col-
our. Green cloth. Gilt title on spine
Provenance: Thought to have been acquired in
the 1940s and thence by descent to
current owners
€100 - 200
The Benediction
Crayon, 45 x 35cm (17¾ x 13¾”)
Signed.
Gallery stamp verso - J.J. McGuigan, 34 Berry Street, London
Provenance: Thought to have been acquired in the 1940s and
thence by descent to current owners
An almost identical painting in oils by Conor sold in these rooms
4th October 2006, lot 138, for €38,000
Conor was born in Belfast in 1881 and attended the Belfast Gov-
ernment School of Art. In 1914 he became the official war artist
in the Ulster Division and by 1918 he had work exhibited for the
first time at the RHA in Dublin.
In 1923 he exhibited at The Goupil Gallery London and in 1924
and 1926 The Stephen’s Green Gallery, Dublin. He had an exhibi-
tion with the Waddington Galleries, Dublin in 1948 and in 1957
there was a retrospective exhibition at the Museum and Art Gal-
lery, Belfast.
He was a founder member of the Royal Ulster Academy of Art
and became its President in 1957. He was elected ARHA in
1938 and in 1946 became a full member of The Royal Hiber-
nian Academy in Dublin and in all showed nearly 200 works
at the RHA.
He wrote.. “All my life I have been completely absorbed with
the activities of the Belfast people and the surrounding country.
Being a Belfast man myself it has been my ambition to reveal
the character of its people in all vigour, in all its senses of life, in
all its variety, in all its passion, humanity and humour”. In this
ambition he was successful being described as a “sort of Belfast
Dostoyevsky”.
Although he was Presbyterian, this did not hinder him depict-
ing Northern Catholics either Going to Mass in the countryside
or praying in church as is shown here. In all of these church
interiors he captures the different generations always focusing
on the matriarchal grandmother in the foreground. Again he
has successfully captured a way of life that is now but a memory
in modern Ireland.
€6,000 - 8,000

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20 William Conor RUA, RHA (1884-1968)
The Shepherd and his Flock
Crayon, 63.5 x 51cm (25 x 20”)
Provenance: One of a collection of works by William Conor, sold at
Waddington Auctioneers, Toronto, June 2001, Cat. No, 1710, where
purchased by the current owner. Another smaller work from this same
Canadian collection, Dancing the Jig, was sold in these rooms December
2012, Cat. No. 48, for €26,000, while another from this collection, The
Street Musician sold for €15,000 in our sale 26th March, Lot 15
John Hewitt has written ‘In the art history of Ireland, William Conor
must be placed with Paul Henry and Jack B Yeats, as one of the first to
record the life of the people in painterly terms, without the trappings
of stage-Irishry. Few can have realised how representative he has been,
how broadly typical of our best moods and impulses.’ According to
Crookshank and Glin, ‘His early crayon drawings, with their very
personal technique, using wax to achieve an uneven texture, develop
from his early training as a lithographer and he achieves something of a
similar effect in his oils.’ The composition, stance and treatment of the
figure in The Shepherd and his Flock are reminiscent of Jack B. Yeats’ Man
from Arranmore 1905 rendered in chalk and watercolour. In Yeats’ work
the man assumes an almost heroic stance and is depicted against the
mountain with the surrounding landscape indicated. Here,the treatment
of the figure against the landscape is similar and even the shepherd’s
gaze and that of the fisherman follow a similar path. Conor’s masterful
use of crayon lends this work an almost aged photographic quality. The
treatment of the figure, delineation of his features, his expression and
even the detailed faces of the sheep and lamb, create a quintessential
Irish study of country life. The subject is uncharacteristic of Conor who
generally made his name as, ‘the pioneer in taking his subjects from
town - rather than country - folk.’ (John Hewitt). Hewitt also admires
Conor’s technical virtuosity; his vivid draughtsmanship, his adept use of
watercolour, his skilful portraiture in many styles, his few but original
essays in landscape.’ This work may feature a scene from Co. Kerry.
Conor spent some time on the Blasket Islands and rural studies include
The Flax Gatherers, Gathering Potatoes and Going to Mass, Co. Kerry.
Marianne O’Kane Boal
€10,000 - 15,000

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21 Paul Henry RHA RUA (1876-1958)
The Potato Diggers (1910-11)
Oil on canvas, 71 x 81.5cm (28 x 32”)
Signed
Provenance: Acquired from the artist in the 1930s and thence
by descent to the present owner
Exhibited: Paintings of Irish Life: Mr. & Mrs. Paul Henry, Pollock’s
Gallery, Belfast, 14-27 March 1911 (33, as Potato Digging)
Paintings by Mrs. Frances Baker, Grace Henry, Paul Henry, Casimir
Dunin-Markiewicz and George Russell (AE), Leinster Hall, Dublin,
16-21 October 1911 (27, as Potato Diggers)
Paintings of Co. Mayo, Ireland (Synge’s Country) by Mr. and Mrs. Paul
Henry, Allied Artists’ Association, London, till 17 February 1912
(10, as Potato Diggers)
Pictures of the West of Ireland by Mr. & Mrs. Paul Henry, Mills’ Hall,
Dublin, 16-28 April 1917 (39)
Paintings by Mr. & Mrs. Paul Henry, Magee’s Gallery, Belfast, from
14 April 1920 (10); Paul & Grace Henry: Irish Life and Landscape,
Leicester Galleries, London, from 6 January 1921 (50)
New Irish Salon, Mills’Hall, Dublin, 8 February-6 March 1926 (2)
Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings, Engravings & Small Sculpture
by Artists Resident in Great Britain & the Dominions, Imperial Art
Gallery, Imperial Institute, London, 12 April-30 June 1927 (123)
Paintings and Charcoals: Paul Henry RHA, Waddington Galleries,
Dublin, 21 February- 3 March 1952 (16);
AnTostal: Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture,International Hotel,
Bray, 8-22 April 1953 (49)
Some Paintings by Modern Irish Artists, Crawford School of Art,
Cork, April-July 1960 (15, reproduced) Paul Henry 1876-1958;
Paul Henry Retrospective Exhibition, Trinity College, Dublin
and Ulster Museum, Belfast, October 1973-January 1974 (7,
reproduced)
Irish Art and Modernism 1880-1950, Lane Gallery, Dublin and
Ulster Museum, Belfast, 20 September 1991-26 January 1992
(6, reproduced in colour)
Literature: Arthur Power, ‘Reassessments-17: Paul Henry,’ Irish
Times, 29 June 1971, p. 8, reproduced
S.B.Kennedy: Irish Art and Modernism 1920-1949,unpublished
Ph.D. thesis, University of Dublin, 1987, vol. 1, pp. 34, 37,
reproduced in colour vol. 2, pl.1
‘Paul Henry: An Irish Portrait’, Irish Arts Review, Yearbook
1989-90, 1989, p. 45, reproduced in colour p. 46
Irish Times, 20 December 1989, p. 12 reproduced
Irish Art and Modernism 1880-1950, Belfast: Institute of Irish
Studies, 1991, pp. 19, 23, 216-7 reproduced in colour; Paul
Henry, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 2,000,
pp. 46-7 reproduced in colour, 143
Paul Henry: with a catalogue of the Paintings, Drawings,
Illustrations, New Haven and London, Yale University Press,
2007, pp. 34, 42, 62, 88, 89, 154, catalogue number 295,
reproduced in colour; Kenneth McConkey, A Free Spirit: Irish
Art 1860-1960, London, Antique Collectors’ Club and Pyms
Gallery, 1990, p.159, reproduced in colour.

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This is one of Paul Henry’s most accomplished works. Henry
went to Achill Island for the first time in August 1910.Through
the influence of his friends Robert and Sylvia Lynd in London,
he had been introduced to the work of W. B. Yeats, whom he
had met in Paris in February 1899, and J. M. Synge, whose
tragic tone poem, Riders to the Sea, had made a deep impression
on him. Synge, he later wrote in his autobiography, An Irish
Portrait (London, 1951, p.48), ‘touched some chord which
resounded as no other music ever had done’ and, he tells us, it
was of Riders to the Sea that he was thinking as he left London
‘on the couple of weeks’ holiday’ he had promised himself. In
moving to Achill Henry had much to loose in London-the
Allied Artists’ Association, Sickert’s ‘at homes’ in his Fitzroy
Street studio, the Tour Eiffel in Charlotte Street, the Café
Royal, ‘all of them places with blessed memories’. Moreover,
he was beginning to make a reputation as a graphic artist on a
number of newspapers and journals.Nevertheless,he was drawn
to Achill Island-he was to spend nine years there-as a sort of
home-coming, for his maternal grandfather, the Rev. Thomas
Berry, had preached the gospel on Achill in the mid-1830s.
Soon after his arrival on the island Henry made for the village
of Keel, on its southern shore. He was enthralled by the life he
found there. ‘Achill … called to me as no other place had ever
done’, he wrote (An Irish Portrait, p.50), yet, he said, although
‘the persuasiveness of its voice charmed me’, it was not easy to
follow its meaning. It was, however, an emotional call and he
decided to settle there,‘not as a visitor but to identify myself with
its life and to see it every day in all its moods.’ In particular the
peasantry working in the fields reminded him of Millet, whose
work he knew as a student in Paris, and he had read Alfred
Sensier’s Jean François Millet, Peasant and Painter (London,
1881). Millet’s The Spaders, which was reproduced in Sensier’s
book, deeply impressed on the young Henry as is evident in
The Potato Diggers. The fields in Achill were very small - ‘a man
might own a field or two beside his door and another bit of
land, about the size of a small suburban front garden, a mile or
so away’- having,for hereditary reasons,been sub-divided many
times over the years.
The Potato Diggers picture was painted at the old post office in
Keel, which was run by John and Eliza Barrett, where Henry
lodged in 1910 and 1911. The post office was situated in the
centre of the village where the former Amethyst Hotel now
stands. Henry’s delight in his new-found circumstances is
palpable in his work done in these first months after his arrival
on the island and its ‘call’ is clear to be seen. In this picture
his Post-Impressionist background in Paris came back to him,
notably in the composition, with the diagonal direction of the
foreground rise where the figures are digging and the opposing
diagonal of the background mountain, which is Slievemore.
The upward thrust of the two figures bent in toil unites these
diagonals with the sky and gives drama to the scene. Each
figure, digging with a spade, is almost a direct quote from
Millet’s The Spaders. Here, like Millet, Henry wanted to paint a
scene of life as it really was, the harshness of daily routine being
evident from the back-breaking work and the small return of
crops produced. ‘I have yet to see people who worked so hard
for so little gain’, he wrote years later. ‘It meant incessant toil
with the spade’, ploughs being useless on those stony fields (An
Irish Portrait, p. 57). In pictures such as this, Henry introduced
a new realism to Irish art. Gone is the ‘stage Irishness’ of much
nineteenth century art and, as with Millet’s field workers, we
realize that life was difficult, being neither heroic nor idyllic,
and the simple toil of the figures gives a natural dignity to their
efforts that is more convincing than much academic painting
of the time. In Irish terms, this new realism can be linked
back through George Moore to the French tradition of Zola,
Flaubert and the Goncourts. Like J. M. Synge’s prose based on
the life he found on the Aran Islands, Henry’s distillation of the
harsh life he found on Achill reflects the natural rhythm of life
and nature.
Often Henry made more than one version of a composition,
and the exact pose of the figures depicted in The Potato Diggers
was represented in another picture of the same title (Kennedy,
2007, p. 182, catalogue number 417) which dates from 1915-
16. In this second, smaller composition, the setting has been
expanded to show the sea in the background and the familiar
profile of the Cliffs of Menawn and Dooega Head, so that,
as here, it must be close to the road between the villages of
Keel and Dooagh. In both pictures, the man digging is Johnny
Toolis and the potatoes are being harvested from ridges, the
traditional method of cultivation on Achill (information from
John McNamara, conversation of 30 January 2003). The same
two figures appear in yet another Henry composition,The Potato
Harvest of 1915-17 (Kennedy, 2007, catalogue number 425).
Dr. S.B. Kennedy, May 2013
€250,000 - 350,000

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Thatched Cottages with Lake and Mountains Beyond (1933-5)
Signed:
Provenance: Sale: Sotheby’s, London, 1 May 1991, lot 55, as Cottages in
Connemara;
de Veres, Dublin: 25 May 1993, lot 69, as West of Ireland
Landscape with Cottage and Lake, repr. in colour. 16 April 2002, lot
125, repr. in colour, acquired by the Oriel Gallery.
Literature: S. B. Kennedy, Paul Henry: with a catalogue of the
Paintings, Drawings, Illustrations, New Haven and London, Yale
University Press, 2007, catalogue number 757, p. 251.
Possibly a scene in Co. Kerry, an area that Henry first visited in late 1932 or
early 1933 when he stayed at Glenbeigh. The visit was a watershed in his life,
for throughout much of the previous decade his relationship with Grace, his
first wife, had deteriorated and culminated with the break up of their marriage
in 1929. However, only by the spring of 1934 were the legalities of the situation
resolved.Thus,when he again visited Kerry in September of that year,accompanied
by Mabel Young who later became his second wife, did his mood lighten as did
his palette in terms of tone and colour. The freshness of this landscape, with the
light blues of the sky and the absence of angst, which characterizes so many of his
earlier paintings, reflects the artist’s more buoyant mood. Henry was enchanted
with the Kerry landscape. ‘It is lovely. Wherever one turns there is material for
dozens of pictures’, he wrote to a friend in New York (Henry to James Healy, letter
of 13 December 1934, James Healy Papers, Healy Collection of Modern Irish
Literature, Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford
University Libraries). He continued, saying ‘I felt that if I spent a lifetime … I
would never exhaust all the possible subjects’. Besides the area around Glenbeigh,
he explored the peninsula as far westwards as Waterville. Many of the resultant
pictures were included in his exhibition, Recent Paintings of Kerry and Connemara,
at the Combridge Gallery, Dublin, in May 1935.The show was well received by the
newspapers, the Irish Press (7 May 1935) perceptively noting the ‘paler key’ of the
pictures, as is well exemplified in this picture.
Dr S.B. Kennedy, May 2013
€120,000 - 160,000

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23 James Humbert Craig, RHA RUA (1877-1944)
Coming Storm, Rosses Coast, Co. Donegal
Oil on board, 25 x 33cm (10 x 13”)
Signed, signed and inscribed with title on label verso
€2,500 - 3,500
24 James Humbert Craig, RHA RUA (1877-1944)
Co. Antrim Hills with Cattle Grazing
Oil on board, 24 x 34cm (9½ x 13½”)
Signed
Provenance: Jorgensen Fine Art, Dublin
€1,500 - 2,500

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25 James Humbert Craig RHA RUA (1877-1944)
Cloud Shadows in the Rosses, Co Donegal
Oil on canvas, 51.5. x 61cm (20¼ x 24”)
Signed, signed again and inscribed with title verso
Provenance: Frost & Reid, London
Exhibited: Spring Exhibition 2000, The Frederick Gallery, Cat. No. 45 where purchased by current owner.
€7,000 - 10,000

36
26 Frank McKelvey RHA RUA (1895-1974)
Landscape in Co. Armagh
Signed.
Exhibited: RHA Annual Exhibition 1955 Cat. No. 104
under the title Landscape in Co. Antrim.
Frank McKelvey Retrospective Exhibition The
Ulster Museum March/April 1993.
Literature: “Frank McKelvey” by Dr SB Kennedy 1993
illustrated P74 in artists home
Provenance: From the artist’s personal collection and thence
by descent to the current owner
Maírín Allen has written of the artist, ‘For the most part, he
paints or sketches direct from nature. His summers, spent
in the country...are filled with amazing activity. As long as
the light lasts he paints...making rapid oil sketches, which
he may finish on the spot, or may expand on larger canvases
at his leisure.’ ‘Landscape in Co. Armagh’ c.1950-5 is typical
of McKelvey’s landscape work and it features a pastoral vista
that offers a calm and contemplative mood. A small group
of four cattle are depicted at a bend in the road beneath the
trees. The entire composition is bathed in the light of high
summer and there are strategically placed rays of sunlight on
the road that lead the eye toward the cattle and also highlight
the livestock itself. The trees to left foreground and right
middle ground frame the landscape and McKelvey’s expert
treatment of skies completes the composition. McKelvey
offers a more colourful twentieth century equivalent of
Hugh Frazer’s landscape vignettes in this appealing view
of the Armagh countryside. S.B.Kennedy has observed ‘In
essence he was a Romantic... he had a sharp eye and could,
with apparent ease, penetrate the essentials of his subject and
set it down with a matching exactitude.’ McKelvey made a
significant contribution to Irish painting. In terms of the
‘evolution of landscape painting in Ireland in those years it
is notable how the driving force was an Ulster-inspired affair
and its main protagonists - Paul Henry, J.H. Craig, Frank
McKelvey, Charles Lamb - each had his own distinctive
technique, yet collectively, as the Irish Times pointed out as
early as 1925, they had the homogeneity of a distinct school.’
(Kennedy). This painting was clearly a work that the artist
himself rated highly. In a photograph of McKelvey at his
home c.1960, the painting has pride of place above the
mantelpiece with McKelvey standing before it.
€12,000 - 16,000
27 Twelve Irish Artists
Produced by The Victor Waddington Galleries 1940, Limited to 125 copies, of
which this is No. 36
Provenance: From the personal collection of the artist Frank McKelvey, and
thence by descent to the current owner
€200 - 400

37

38
28 Frank McKelvey, RHA, RUA (1895-1974)
Near Castlebar, Co. Mayo
Oil on canvasboard, 30 x 41cm (12 x 16”)
Signed, inscribed with title on label verso
€4,000 - 6,000

39
29 Frank McKelvey, RHA, RUA (1895-1974)
Falcarragh, Co. Donegal
Oil on canvas, 34 x 44cm (13½ x 17½”)
Signed
€5,000 - 7,000

40
30 Harry Epworth Allen ( 1894-1958)
Claddagh Cottages
Tempera on board, 38 x 53cm (15 x 21”)
Signed
Provenance: Anderson Auctioneers Belfast, 1st December 1999 (Front Cover Illustration), Cat. No. 80 where purchased by
current owner
Literature: John Basford, Harry Epworth Allen - Catalogue of his works, listed page 105
€5,000 - 8,000

41
31 Charles Lamb RHA RUA (1893-1964)
“Sruthán Harbour”
Oil on board, 27 x 35 cm (10.5 x 13.75”)
Signed
Exhibited : Lamb in Connemara Exhibition ,The Ava Gallery, Clandeboye, January/February 2012 (ex Catalogue)
€3,000 - 5,000

42
32 Seán Keating PRHA HRA (1889-1978)
‘I Gave Him a Smoke’ (Circa 1922/3)
Oil on board, 92 x 77cm (36¼ x 30¼”)
Signed
Provenance: The Imperial Gallery of Art, London, 1929;
Sean Keating Retrospective RHA Gallery, Dublin, Nov/Dec 1989 RHA cat. no.111
Literature: “Playboy of the Western World” by John Millington Synge (1927)
illustrated P65
Commissioned by the executors of the John Millington Synge Estate in 1922, I
Gave Him a Smoke is one of ten paintings made by Seán Keating to illustrate The
Playboy of the Western World, published by George Allen and Unwin in 1927. The
paintings feature students and friends from the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art,
and several actors from productions of the play at the Abbey Theatre.Notably,Keating
appears throughout the series as Old Mahon, the man who was supposedly killed by
his erstwhile son. The story is well-known, and I Gave Him a Smoke refers to a point
in the play during which Old Mahon has, apparently, returned from the dead, and
is entertaining the Widow Quin with stories about his son’s cowardice and lack of
masculinity. He tells the Widow that Christy was so feeble that he would ‘get drunk
on the smell of a pint.’He goes on to say that his son’s stomach was so weak that when
he gave him three pulls from his pipe ‘...he was taken with contortions till I had to
send him in the ass-cart to the females’ nurse...’The painting illustrates those lines; it
shows Keating, as Old Mahon, having a smoke from his clay pipe while his gormless
son writhes in anguish on the ground. The ass-cart waits in the background, ready to
take Christy to the worst place imaginable for a man in those days - to the nurse who
dealt with girls and women - a dreadful comedown for the man hailed as a hero for
committing patricide.The illustrated edition of Synge’s play, which was described as a
comedy in three acts, was published in an edition of one thousand copies. I Gave Him
a Smoke is reproduced on page 65.
Dr Éimear O’Connor HRHA
Research Associate
TRIARC-Irish Art Research Centre
TCD.
Éimear O’Connor’s book, Seán Keating: Art, Politics and Building the Irish Nation is
published by Irish Academic Press, and is available in paperback, hard back (limited
edition) and hard back slip cased (limited edition).
€30,000 - 40,000

43

44
The Imp
Charcoal, 33 x 25cm (13 x 9.75”)
Signed and inscribed with title verso
Provenance: Sold in these rooms, Important Irish Art Sale, 31st
March 1999, Cat. No. 103, where purchased by current owner
€1,000 - 1,500
Study for The Land of Promise
Pastel and chalk on paper, 60 x 49cm (23.5 x 19.25”)
Signed
€3,000 - 5,000

45
Landscape and Clouds
Charcoal, 45.5 x 37cm (17.8 x 14½”)
Signed
Provenance: Sold in these rooms, Important
Irish Art Sale, 9th December 1998, Lot 33 and
afterwards with:
Jorgensen Fine Art, Dublin, where purchased
by the current owners
Literature: Dr. S.B. Kennedy, Paul Henry:
Paintings, Drawings and Illustrations, Cat. No.
262, p144
€4,000 - 6,000

46
36 Sir William Orpen RHA RA (1878-1931)
Lord George Hell
Oil on canvas, 76.2 x 66 cms (30 x 26”)
Signed
Literature: The Art of a Nation:Three Centuries of Irish Painting, Pyms Gallery, London, June
2002, cat.no.30
Lord George Hell is the principal character in Max Beerbohm’s The Happy Hypocrite,who falls
in love with the dancer, Jenny Mere, an ingénue in the seedy world of corrupt impresarios.
A Regency reprobate, he sets about to woo her, but in order to do so, must wear a mask to
cover a pock-marked face. When he succeeds in his task and the mask is removed, his face
has miraculously healed and become ‘saintly’ - such is the power of love. The story was
published in 1896 followed by a one-act dramatised version at the Royalty Theatre in 1900.
Orpen’s first version of the subject is likely to have been inspired by seeing this production,
rather than reading the book. This was shown at the new English Art Club in 1901.
It is clear in the present work that Orpen wished to recreate the impression of late eight-
eenth or early nineteenth century prints. The girl’s dress, bonnet and black shoes recall
the maidens of Gainsborough, Romney and Hoppner and the encounter mimics, to some
extent, that of Gainsborough’s Haymaker and the Sleeping Girl. In the present version Jenny
is undoubtedly startled by Lord George and by the transforming effect of his love for her.
The story of the miracle, revisited late in his career, clearly had a profound effect on Orpen
since the original drawing was placed on his easel just before his death so that it could be
transferred to oil.
€20,000 - 30,000

47

48
37 John Butler Yeats RHA (1839-1922)
Portrait of Jenny Yeats
Oil on canvas, 50.8 x 40.7 cms (20 x 16”)
Exhibited: Pyms Gallery, London, Friendship Portraits, 11th May
- 17th June 2005, cat. no. 1
Literature: The Art of a Nation: Three Centuries of Irish Painting,
Pyms Gallery London June 2002, cat. no. 15
The son of a Protestant rector from Sligo, John Butler Yeats was
born in Co. Down and studied Law at Trinity College, Dublin. In
1865 after the birth of his first child, the poet William Butler Yeats
he moved to London and joined Heatherley’s School of Art. He
became friends with J.T. Nettleship, George Wilson and Edwin
Ellis who were all keen to extend the ideals of the Pre-Raphaelites.
In 1872 Yeats produced his first portraits and in 1880 he returned
to Ireland showing regularly at the RHA. In 1908, after having
moved back to London in 1887, he emigrated permanently to New
York. He became friendly with Robert Henri and John Sloan, the
leaders of the Ash Can School. He showed regularly with members
of the school in New York whilst also enjoying the patronage of
John Quinn.
Yeats’ family, particularly his children, provided him with material
for portraits throughout his career. Here he paints his sister Jane
Grace or Jenny, named after their mother. Yeats, also gave the
same pair of names to his daughter who died in infancy. Like her
sister Grace Jane (Gracie) she remained unmarried living quietly
in Morehampton Road, in Donnybrook. The ‘Morehampton Road
Yeats’ (also including his brother Isaac) represented the respectable
antithesis of the artist’s carefree and bohemian lifestyle, though
on occasion they dutifully turned up to certain important events
such as Susan Mitchell’s lecture on their brother in 1919. Isaac in
particular was a conservative bourgeois, secretary of the Artisan
Dwelling Company and a firm unionist ‘if he ever had a daring
idea he successfully concealed it’. Surprisingly little information
survives about Jenny Yeats’s life, she hardly features in her brother’s
correspondence. She died shortly before the Second World War at
the age of ninety two.
As early as the mid 1870s, Yeats had portrayed Gracie (in a work
which was turned down by the Royal Academy), while the present
portrait of Jenny can be dated to the early 1890s. As such, it is a
rare early oil by the artist from his London period. Yeats himself
claimed that he did not lift a paint brush between 1890 and 1897.
This is not quite true as a Portrait of Ascheson Henderson (Ulster
Museum) is dated 1891,certainly,however,it was a fallow period
in his career, during which he was more concerned with book
illustration and failed literary projects. Nevertheless the portrait
of his sister is an accomplished piece of painting with a strong
sense of modelling and neat simplicity of composition. It shows
Jenny, on a visit to London, conservatively dressed, perhaps even
a little prim, her attire contrasting with the oriental screen of the
background. William Butler in his autobiography recalled that
the family home in Bedford Park was decorated in the aesthetic
style with ‘peacock blue’and the juxtaposition of his buttoned up
aunt with the sensual background, with all the connotations that
the aesthetic movement conjured up in London of the 1890s is
surely deliberate and not a little ironic
€12,000- 18,000

49
38 Patrick Tuohy RHA (1894-1930)
A Portrait of Lord Fingal, half length, seated
in hunting attire
Oil on canvas, 95 x 74cm (37½ x 29”)
Signed
Exhibited: Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, 1924,
Cat. No. 18
This evocative portrait of a benign and moustachi-
oed gentleman, seated, wearing a hunting coat of
the Meath Foxhounds, is redolent of that patrician
and tolerant society so well preserved in the pages of
Somerville and Ross. Arthur Plunkett (1859-1929)
the 11th Earl of Fingall was the senior peer of a fam-
ily that were ancient Lords of the Pale: Dunsany of
Dunsany Castle and Lowth of Louth Hall.The story
is told how the Dunsany Plunketts conformed to the
established church to protect their Catholic kins-
mens’ land, through the Penal Laws; a trust that was
never broken.
Lord Fingall led an ornamental life as State Steward
in Dublin Castle (with an interlude of adventure as
a yeomanry volunteer in the Boer War). He married
a horse-mad woman from County Galway. In her
memoirs of 1937 ‘Seventy Years Young’, she describes
a life of hunting and hunt balls, her husband always
referred to as ‘Fingall’. Her account of sitting up with
the family jewellery awaiting the fate of Kileen Castle,
having received in the night a laconic message from
their neighbour, Sir John Dillon, (“Dear Fingall,They
are burning my house and say they are going on to
you. I thought I had better let you know”), is as good
a vignette as any of the end of the Anglo-Irish world.
The Earldom ceased with the death of their son,
Oliver, well remembered in County Meath, and the
barony of 1403, has reverted to the Dunsany’s.
€5,000 - 7,000

50
39 Sir William Orpen RHA RA (1878-1931)
Little Billy Orpen
Pen and ink, 20.5 x 15cm (8 x 6”)
Signed and inscribed ‘Little Billy Orpen aged 12 at work in
the School of Art Dublin 1890 - To Mrs. S. with love Orps’
€1,500 - 2,500
40 Darius J. MacEgan, (The MacEgan) (1856-1939)
Portrait of Kevin O’Higgins
Pencil, 40 x 31.5cm (15¾ x 11.4”)
Signed
Kevin O’Higgins, the well known politician, was born in Stra-
bally, Co. Laois in 1892. He was educated at Clongowes Wood
College and later at St. Patricks College, Maynooth and UCD.
While still a student he joined Sinn Féin. He was first elected as
MP for Laois while he was imprisoned in 1918. He was on the
run in 1920 and was elected TD for South Dublin in 1922. He
was a strong advocate of acceptance of the 1921 Treaty.
After the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922 he be-
came Minister for Justice and external affairs. O’Higgins estab-
lished An Garda Síochána as an unarmed police force to replace
the RIC. While on his way to mass on 10th July 1927 at Boot-
erstown, Co. Dublin he was shot dead by an unknown gunman.
This work is thought to be one of a series of pencil drawings
of the first executive Government that The Mac Egan did circa
1924 - another of the series of T.M. Healy as Governor-General
of the Irish Free State is in Áras an Uachtaráin.
€400 - 600

51
41 Edward Luttrell (c.1650-1710)
Portrait of a Wigged Gentleman, half-length, wearing brown robes
and a lace jabot
Pastel, oval, 22.5 x 18.5cm (9 x 7½”)
Provenance: Sotheby’s Irish Sale, London, 9th May 2007, Lot 2
Born in Dublin, Luttrell is Ireland’s earliest pastelist. Examples of his work can
be found in the NGI collection.
€1,500 - 2,500

52
42 Alexander Williams RHA (1846-1930)
Lake Side, Co. Kerry
Signed
€2,000 - 4,000

53
43 Edwin Hayes RHA RI ROI (1819-1904)
Roche’s Point with Shipping at the Entrance to Cork
Harbour
Oil on canvas, 25.5 x 43cm (10 x 17”)
Edwin Hayes is undoubtedly Ireland’s most dedicated and
talented marine painter, with an output spanning over 60
years. His knowledge of the sea and of ships, and his equal
interest in these two elements brings a realism and life to his
work which is unmatched.
The Pilot cutter in the foreground is running out of Cork
Harbour, passing Roche’s Point Lighthouse, with shipping in
the background, and the forts of Carlisle and Camden just
visible. Presumably on its way to transfer the Cork pilot to a
ship waiting to enter harbour.The cutter is using a temporary
rigged square sail, evidenced by the top and bottom yards,
which has been rigged to take advantage of the wind on the
stern. The boat is also flying the red ensign, which is now
commonly known as the ensign carried by British registered
commercial shipping, however in 1851, the date of this work,
the red ensign was carried by Royal Navy vessels from the red
fleet. In addition the Royal Cork Yacht Club, also flew a red
ensign at this time.
This view of Cork Harbour, is one of Hayes’s very few views
of this part of Ireland. The RHA records list few Cork titles,
and none after 1851.
€4,000 - 5,000

54
Some of Walter Osborne’s most memorable pictures were paint-
ed in Brittany. He spent the spring of 1883 at Dinan, summer at
Pont-Aven and autumn at Quimperlé, painting scenes of Breton
life in a naturalistic manner, and also taking photographs. Pont-
Aven was one of the most beautiful villages in Finistere with its
bridge over the river Aven, stone mills, boats in the port, and
surrounding woods. Pont-Aven later became celebrated through
its association with Gauguin and his followers, but in 1883, at
the time of Osborne’s arrival, it was already at the height of its
popularity as an artist’s village amongst American, British and
Scandinavian artists.
Osborne painted small pictures of an old mill and the port, and
studies of children in a little square, beside the river, and in the
market place. The larger canvas Driving a Bargain is a colourful,
carefully observed painting of groups of women and children in
the centre of Pont-Aven on market day.This painting was sold at
Adam’s on 29th May 2002 (No. 23 - €620,000).
The present painting A Grey Morning in a Breton Farmyard is
set at Keramperchec, a hamlet a mile from Pont-Aven, along the
estuary and sheltered by trees. The pre-fix ‘KER’ is ubiquitous in
Brittany, referring to a village, hamlet or farmhouse. Each village
or dwelling was proud of its old stone well, often carved in an in-
dividual, regional style. Keramperchec was particularly admired
for its secluded rustic setting, with its thatched cottages, farm-
yard, and beautiful stone well and graceful cupola with carved
head, dating from 1783 just before the period of the Vendean
Wars.
Keramperchec attracted a number of artists, including Jona-
than Pratt in 1877, Fernand Quignon (1880), Walter Lang-
ley (1881), Sylvain Depeige and Osborne in 1883, Nathaniel
Hill in 1884, Arthur Wesley Dow in 1885 and Paul Abram in
c. 1895, (and probably Adrian Stokes in 1877 and Henry R.
Robinson in 1886), as well as photographers in the early twen-
tieth century. Even though it appears to have been a working
farm,even in Osborne’s day Keramperchec had become a place
where peasants and village girls would pose in a natural setting
for artists.
Osborne’s A Grey Morning in a Breton Farmyard, 1883, fea-
tures a man, a girl and two calves in the farmyard at Keramp-
erchec. The man wears a soft Breton hat and blue jacket. He
pours water from a wooden bucket into a stone trough for the
calves to drink. Nearby, a girl, perhaps the daughter or grand-
daughter of the man, sits quietly watching. She wears a pink
and white bonnet and white collar, characteristic of the Pont-
Aven region, a brown apron over blue dress, and wooden clogs.
An earthenware pitcher is placed near her.
In her monograph on Walter Osborne, published in 1974,
Jeanne Sheehy writes of A Grey Morning in a Breton Farmyard:
“It is very much an Academy work, being carefully built up
and meticulously finished - a typical example of early Osborne,
with the child and young animals’’. (p.19).
44 Walter Osborne RHA (1859-1903)
A Grey Morning in a Breton Farmyard (1883)
Oil on canvas, 52 x 73cm (20¼ x 28¾”)
Provenance: H.D. Brown, (by 1883), his sale. Edmund Lupton, his sale, (c. 1942). James J. Davey.
Sold in these rooms, Important Irish Art Sale, 5th December 2006, lot 93, where purchased by the current owner
Exhibited: Dublin, Royal Hibernian Academy, 1884, no. 99;
Liverpool, Autumn Exhibition, 1884, No.884;
Walter Osborne Memorial Exhibition, RHA 1903, No.21 lent by H.D.Brown Esq
Literature: T.Bodkin, Four Irish Landscape Painters, 1920 (Irish Academic Press ed. 1987), pp. 188, 131, 141.
J. Sheehy, Walter Osborne, Gifford and Craven, Ballycotton, 1974, p. 19, no. 62.
J. Campbell, Walter Osborne’s Wallet of Photographs, Irish Art Review Yearbook, 2001, vol. 17, p. 153, illustrated p. 154.

55

56
But the painting easily transcends any academic conventions.The fig-
ures are crisply drawn, and convincingly integrated into the open-air
setting, a characteristic of Osborne’s ‘plein-air’ pictures that distin-
guishes him from many of his contemporaries. Moreover, his atten-
tion to detail and his feeling for textures can be seen in the gentle fall
of light on the girl’s face, the texture of the granite well, with lichen
growing, the rough stone walls, small windows and thatched roof of
the cottage, and the garden wall where moss is spreading. The farm-
yard had somewhat fallen into neglect. But wiry trees are in leaf, and
through the arched doorway a verdant cabbage patch can be seen.
Thin cloud covers the blue sky. Such overcast days were favoured by
many ‘plein-airists’, allowing them to work in an even grey light, with
emphasis upon the tonal greys, grey-greens, browns and blue-greys.
But in Osborne’s painting the ochres, greens and silvers have a glow-
ing warmth, suggesting that the sunshine is going to break through.
Nathaniel Hill’s smaller painting Goose Girl in a Breton Farmyard,
1884 (Crawford Gallery, Cork) focuses on the right-hand side of the
yard, but takes an identical view of the wall, and doorway behind.
He represents a girl in white bonnet and apron crouching to feed a
flock of young geese. His careful realistic style is almost identical to
that of Osborne, although the figure and birds are more generalised
in treatment.
Osborne may have regarded A Grey Morning in a Breton Farmyard as
a companion piece to Apple Gathering, Quimperlé (N.G.I.), the for-
mer being painted at Pont-Aven in summer, the latter at Quimperlé
in autumn; and both pictures being exhibited at the R.H.A., and at
the Irish section of the Liverpool Autumn Exhibition the following
year.
A Grey Morning was loaned to the Walter Osborne Memorial Exhi-
bition in Dublin in 1903, the year of the artist’s untimely death. A
small pencil drawing of Osborne’s painting is included in the artist’s
sketchbook (NGI no. 19,201, facing p.3,[i])
A Grey Morning in a Breton Farmyard catches a real sense of rustic life
that engages our attention. Osborne combines qualities of intensity
of observation with detachment,naturalism with affection for his hu-
man subject-matter,that became characteristic aspects of his painting
throughout his career.
Dr. Julian Campbell
€100,000 - 150,000

57
45 Roderic O’Conor, RHA (1860-1940)
Seated Woman with Roses
Oil on canvas, 55 x 46cm (21¾ x 18”)
Painted circa 1923-5
O’Conor painted another similar work but without the roses
on the table, see Benington Cat. No. 277 (Private Collection
Norther Ireland)
Exhibited: The Frederick Gallery, Autumn Exhibition 1998,
Cat. No. 2, where purchased by current owner;
Shades of a Master Roderic O’Conor Exhibition, The Hunt
Museum Limerick June/August 2003, Cat. No. 23 (illus-
trated)
Literature: Roderic O’Conor, Jonathan Benington’s biography
and catalogue of his work, Cat. No. 278, illustrated p223
O’Conor paints the subject of this carefully arranged portrait
in a pose he much favoured, with the sitter’s head slightly
lowered and light entering from the side. This allowed him
to create a tranquil atmosphere through his deft treatment
of light and shade. While the model sits in a conventional
frontal pose, her reluctance to meet the viewer’s gaze and
O’Conor’s adoption of a closer than usual viewpoint creates
an air of intimacy generally absent from formal portraits.
€20,000 - 30,000

58
46 Richard Thomas Moynan RHA (1856-1906)
Invitation to go Haymaking
Provenance: Sold in these rooms, 28th May 1997 (front cover
illustration), Lot. No. 41 , where purchased by current
owner
Moynan was born in Dublin and first studied medicine at the Royal
College of Surgeons, before attending the Metropolitan School of
Art with Roderic O’Conor. He trained at the Antwerp Academy
between 1883 and 1885 where he won first prize in painting from
life, and shared lodgings with fellow Irish artist Henry Allan. He
returned to Dublin in 1888 and was employed for a time by local
newspaper The Union as a political cartoonist under the pseudonym
‘Lex’, but hoped to become renowned for large scale genre paintings
such as this. He exhibited regularly at the RHA between 1880 and
1905.
He was the principal recorder of Dublin city and county in the late
Victorian era, and was influenced by Osborne in his portrayal of
naturalistic scenes of village life. Moynan painted several pictures of
children such as this, which were popular amongst late nineteenth
century artists. Moynan brings his individual strong narrative quality
and his cultivated naivety belies a keen eye for detail and composition.
This is one of two known versions of this work, the other was sold at
Christie’s London, 15th March 1985, Lot No. 85
€20,000 - 30,000

59

60
47 William John Leech RHA ROI (1881-1961)
The Bridge, Amboise
Oil on board, 34.25 x 45cm (13½ x 17¾”)
Signed. Inscribed artist’s label verso
Provenance: Sold in these rooms, Important Irish Art sale, May 1991, Lot 35
(Illustrated on front cover); where purchased by the current owner
Leech captures the bridge over the Loire in the beautiful, historic town of Amboise,
believed to be the final resting place of Leonardo de Vinci. Paintings titled ‘The
Convent,Amboise’and ‘St.Denis,Amboise’were exhibited at the RHA in 1937 and
1938 respectively, suggesting Leech spent time painting in Amboise in 1936 ± 37,
before the outbreak of the 2nd World War, after which he did not return to paint in
France. Leech’s broad paint handling, in capturing the evening glow of the setting
sun on the parapet and buildings beyond,show his development as an artist from his
more formal depiction of ‘The Bridge at Paris’ c. 1912.
Denise Ferran April 2013
€15,000 - 25,000

61

62
48 Mildred Anne Butler RWS (1858-1941)
Peacocks in a Garden
Watercolour, 15 x 24cm (6 x 9.5”)
Signed
€2,000 - 3,000

63
49 Mildred Anne Butler, RWS (1858-1941)
The Doves
Watercolour, 46 x 63.5cm (18 x 25”)
Signed
Provenance: Sotheby’s “Irish Sale” May 1998, where purchased by current owner
€7,000 - 10,000

64
A Castle in Europe, 1885
Watercolour, 24 x 17.5cm (9½ x 6¾”)
Provenance: Mrs Doreen Archer-Houblon
Exhibited: Mildred Anne Butler Travelling Exhibition,
Crawford Municipal Art Gallery, Cork, August 1987,
Cat. No. 96; Galway, Ulster Museum, Belfast, April-
June 1988
€400 - 600
Study of a Horse
Watercolour, 21 x 27cm (8¼ x 10½”)
Exhibited: Mildred Anne Butler Travelling Exhibition,
Crawford Municipal Art Gallery, Cork, August 1987,
Cat. No. 73; Galway, Cat. No. 46; Ulster Museum, Bel-
fast, April-June 1988
€500 - 800

65
Cats Resting in the Sun
Watercolour, 20 x 25.5cm (8 x10”)
Signed
€2,000 - 3,000

66
Three G. Rowney & Co. ring bound Whatman board sketch books with seven watercolur studies comprising
1. Lake scene with boat (i)(1)
18 x 25.7cm (7 x 10”)
2. Rosebush in bloom (i); Daffodils in bloom(ii); Wooded pasture with bluebells (iii) (3)
13 x 18.3cm (5 x 7¼”)
3. Aix en Provence (i); A Promenade (ii) Continental Lake Scene & Sketch of Birds (iii) (3)
13 x 18.3cm (5 x 7¼”)
€2,000 - 4,000
54 Joseph Poole Addey (1852-1922)
A Tabby Cat Drinking Milk
Watercolour, 32.5 x 46.5cm (12¾ x 18¼”)
€600 - 800
Sketchbook 2 (iii)Sketchbook 2 (i)Sketchbook 1 (i)

67
55 Charles MacIver Grierson, RI (1864-1934)
Circus Tricks
Watercolour, 61 x 76cm (24 x 30”)
Provenance: Sold in these rooms, “Important Irish Art” sale, 26th May 1999, Cat. No. 111, where purchased by the
current owner
Charles MacIver Grierson was born in Queenstown, now Cobh, Co. Cork, in December 1864. His father was the man-
ager of the Cunard Steamship Company, Queenstown. He studied at the Crawford School of Art and for a time went
on to the Westminister School of Art.The main venue for his output was the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour
where over the years he exhibited over 80 works including some Irish views.He met his wife while staying in Sligo in the
period between 1899-1904 and several of his works are in private collections in Sligo. He exhibited extensively including
at the RHA, RA, Walker Gallery, Liverpool, 64 works at the Abbey Gallery, Manchester City Gallery and the Society
of Artists, Birmingham and as a far afield as Sydney and Adelaide where the City Art Gallery was an official purchaser.
€2,000 - 4,000

68
As Walter Strickland observed, Andrew Nicholl was devoted
to art from his boyhood, and ‘won a reputation as a landscape
painter in his native town.’ He would later be known as the most
talented, renowned and prolific topographical Irish artist of the
nineteenth century. His training was important. He worked
as a talented apprentice at the printing business of F.D. Finley
where he was under the instruction of his elder brother William.
While in London, he spent considerable time at the Dulwich
College Gallery, where he copied paintings on show. He admired
the work of J.M.W. Turner. Jeanne Sheehy has written; ‘Most
of his work is interesting, but particularly exciting is the series
in which wildflowers in the foreground form a screen through
which we dimly perceive the landscape. The paintings have a
sharpness and naïveté which is totally captivating.’ This series,
of which ‘Distant View of Derry through a Bank of Poppies,’ is
an exemplary case, demonstrates the artist’s talents aptly. He is
evidently a master of the watercolour medium. The work features
the fine exactitude of botanical illustration and combines this
with a distant view of Derry City where a unifying cast of even
light allows background and foreground to complement. The
eye eagerly explores the frieze of wildflowers in the foreground
- poppies, cornflowers, oxeye daisies, dandelions - the beautiful
colours of this remarkable roadside display. The city appears
almost incidental in the distance, viewed at this range, and yet
its placement is highly strategic. In this vignette, placed largely
to the left and glimpsed through the flowers, Nicholl includes
enough detail to demonstrate Derry’s importance at the time.
Rebuilt in the Georgian style in the eighteenth century, the
principal detail shown is the city’s first bridge across the River
Foyle, which Earl Bishop Frederick Augustus Hervey was
responsible for building. As well as indicating the ecclesiastical
landmarks, the artist includes a range of shipping to demonstrate
the importance of the City’s port in the nineteenth century as
an embarkation point for Irish emigrants leaving for North
America. These combination views of wildflowers and landscape
were a speciality of Nicholl’s and feature a number of locations
including; Newcastle, Fairhead, Howth, Bray, Carlingford, Lough
Swilly, Ramelton, Rathmullan, Dunluce Castle, and Downhill
Mussendon Temple. This style of depiction surely came from
Nicholl’s interest in topographical art, combined with his interest
in botanical illustration, which became popular and refined in
terms of accuracy in the eighteenth century due to advances in
the printing process, of which Nicholl had first-hand experience.
In Ireland’s Painters 1600-1940, Crookshank and Glin, write ‘In
those near-surrealist watercolours...there is an originality which
makes them amongst the most haunting...Irish paintings of the
early nineteenth century. These are his masterpieces.’(p210) John
Hewitt observes ‘...his originality appears most strongly [in his]
landscape of distant hills, foregrounded by a wedge or bank of
roadside wild flowers. By scratch and scrape of the surface of his
paper,...for the spray-frayed tips of breaking waves, he gave his
flowers and grasses an illusory precision and finish.’ The ‘sgraffitto’
or ‘scraping out’ technique that Hewitt mentions is the ideal
device to capture the delicacy and fine lines within the wildflowers.
Nicholl began painting these wildflowers works quite early in his
career. In 1830, the sister of his patron Emerson Tennent wrote a
sonnet after receiving from the artist ‘a beautiful coloured drawing
of flowers.’He was a highly prolific artist and the Ulster Museum
alone has almost 400 works by Andrew Nicholl.
€7,000 - 10,000
56 Andrew Nicholl, RHA, RUA (1804-1886)
A View of Derry Through a Bank of Poppies
Watercolour, 36 x 52cm (14 x 20½”)
Signed
Provenance: Previously in the collection of John O’Sullivan;
Sold in these rooms, “Important Irish Art” Sale, 29th March 2000 (front cover
illustration), Lot 83, where purchased by current owner

69

70
57 Andrew Nicholl RHA (1804-1886)
Pigeon Cave, Donegal
Watercolour, 22.5 x 33cm (10 x 13”)
Signed
€600 - 800
58 Joseph W. Carey RUA (1859-1937)
Cushendall Bay, Co. Antrim
Watercolour, 23.5 x 37cm (9¼ x 14½”)
Signed and inscribed with title
€400 - 600

71
59 Erskine Nicol ARA RSA (1825-1904)
The Apple of Her Eye - “It’s my baby boy they’ll be murtherin’, but its own mother
will see it safe over the bog.”
Watercolour, 34 x 24.5cm (13.4 x 9.6”)
€4,000 - 6,000

72
60 Patrick Hennessy RHA (1915-1980)
Fruit Stand
Oil on canvas, 34.5 x 61cm (13½ x 24”)
Signed
Exhibited: The David Hendriks Gallery, Dublin, August 1980, (label verso)
3,000 - 5,000

73
60A Patrick Hennessy RHA (1915-1980)
Lake Island
Signed. Inscribed P.H. 105 verso
Provenance. Sold in these rooms, Important Irish Art Sale, 14th March 1991 Cat. No. 138
where purchased by current owner.
Exhibited: The David Hendriks Gallery, Dublin, (label verso)
4,000 - 6,000

74
THE JAMES GIBSON COLLECTION Lot 61-81
James Gibson was a Belfast schoolmaster whose passion for collecting manifested itself in the 1960s. This was a rich time for collectors of Irish art and over the
next four decades he was able to assemble an extensive collection that included a number of fine works by some of the major Irish artists of the twentieth century.
There is a marvellous unifying taste that runs through much of the collection. Clearly what appealed to James Gibson was the confident touch of the experienced
plein air painter who was as interested in capturing the light and tones of a momentary glimpse of a landscape, or an opening in the clouds that created a magical
effect of light. It is notable that one of the three paintings by Paul Henry in this collection is the impressionistic and highly evocative Waterville, Co.Kerry. The
same taste runs through to the smaller paintings whose kinship with the work of Craig, Henry and Iten were seen by the collector.
Provenance was of the utmost importance for James Gibson and many of the works sold here can be traced back to their initial sale from the artist or their family,
or from galleries such as Rodman’s or leading auction houses.Many of these works were bought from the Bell Gallery and reflect the fine judgement of Nelson Bell.
It is rare to see a collection of this scale that has so many jewels within it.Both James Gibson’s Frank McKelvey paintings are exceptional; his three Paul Henrys are
each different but significant; while the Humbert Craig paintings again represent varied aspects of this fine artist.The exquisite Colin Middleton painting is unu-
sual and demonstrates this Ulster landscape tradition moving gently into the modern era.The series of small panels by Hans Iten that James Gibson put together
over many years are a particular pleasure, recalling that this was a collector who knew Belfast and the surrounding landscape that was so uniquely evoked by Iten.
Dickon Hall May 2013
A Connemara Bog
Signed
Provenance: From the estate of the late James Gibson
Exhibited: 1931 RHA (Alleged to have been 19, as The Bog
Stream); 1935 Dublin (20, as Bog Stream, Donegal)
Literature: Anne M. Stewart (ed.), Royal Hibernian Academy
of Arts: Index of Exhibitors and their Works 1826-1979, 3 vols.,
Dublin: Manton Publishing, 1985, vol. 2, p. 81; S. B. Kennedy,
Illustrations, Yale University Press, New Haven and London,
2007, p. 246, catalogue number 726.
Although thought to have been exhibited at the RHA in 1931
as catalogue number 19-and there is an unidentified label on
the reverse with an exhibition number ‘19’-the imagery in
this composition does not quite match the title of that work,
although with Henry such things should never be taken on
face value. Judged stylistically, however, the use of fluid paint
contrasts with the dryer palette typical of his work in the late
1920s and points to a date of around 1930/1. Although the
setting cannot be identified, the nature of the terrain suggests
the area around Maam at the north-western tip of Lough
Corrib in County Galway, where Henry often painted in
these years. Certainly the handling of the paint is comparable
to other pictures he painted there, such as The Muinterone
at Maam, 1928-30, or, a later work, The Maam Valley, 1942
(Kennedy, 2007, numbers 692 and 1035 respectively, both
reproduced).The billowing cumulous clouds and the growing
brightness of the sky are used in a masterly fashion to radiate
light on the foreground landscape, a device characteristic of
Henry’s work in general.
€25,000 - 35,000

75

76
Camlough Fair, the Clinching Bid
Oil on board, 33 x 39cm (13 x 15½”)
Signed and dated 1924, inscribed with title verso. Bell Gallery label verso
Camlough, meaning ‘Crooked Lake’ in Irish, is a few miles from McKelvey’s wife
Elizabeth Murphy’s homeplace, a farm, at Bessbrook, Co. Armagh and this work
was painted the year that they got married (6th Feb 1924) at Craigavad, Co. Down.
In their time, the fair towns were very important, places the population concen-
trated on,and people walked for miles on a fair day to sell their produce. Camlough
is one of thirty towns listed in Co. Armagh as fair towns in Wilson’s Directory of
Ireland, 1834. ‘Camlough Fair, the Clinching Bid’ is a superb work by the artist. It
channels some of the principal motifs of impressionism - the play of light, the
fleeting moment, a general mood - into a perfectly rendered composition. Every
element is carefully orchestrated and the result is a pleasure for the eye to peruse.
The figure group in the left foreground initially draws the viewer’s gaze. These
men in their coats are treated in a manner akin to the early work of Jack B Yeats.
They are depicted on a neutral backdrop to highlight the point of the handshake,
the deal being struck. This action is observed by the lady in profile and the man
adjacent, and the composition naturally invites the viewer to look on from the side-
lines. The light in this painting shows McKelvey at his best, capturing the essence
of a summer’s day and the event of the Fair Day; the sheep practically glow as do
the cattle beyond as these animals are bathed in light. To further demonstrate the
bustle and activity in Camlough, McKelvey introduces a range of colours before the
terraced houses to indicate the crowds of people enjoying the proceedings. Shafts
of light again streak across the terraced facade and enliven the painting further. The
trees are much looser than in McKelvey’s other work of the time, but this is a well-
informed deviation as the composition is already sufficiently developed. This is a
key work in the artist’s oeuvre. McKelvey has made another work on this subject
Fair Day at Camlough, Co. Armagh, a fine watercolour on paper of a similar scene
from another angle. It also comprises of two principal groups, one to fore, and one
to the left, to unify the composition. In his work ‘Market Scene’ c1935, painted a
decade after the featured painting,the work is looser and is concerned with portray-
ing an overall mood of a market town, rather than a definitive place or transaction.
McKelvey continued to capture this subject on occasion, his latest known work ‘The
Cattle Fair’ painted in 1971.
€12,000 - 16,000

77

78
Feeding Chickens at The Back of the House
Oil on board, 35.5 x 44.5cm (14 x 17½”)
Signed
During the twenties, McKelvey regularly painted farmyard scenes, within which
a woman, often accompanied by a child, would be engaged in scattering feed to
surrounding chickens. Simply titled, examples include; Feeding Chickens 1922,
Feeding the Chickens late 1920s, this painting The Back of the House and later
Farmyard, Co. Antrim c1950-3 and Bridget’s Hens 1968. Around 1921, Frank
McKelvey took a cottage at the Maze,Hillsborough,Co.Down and later after their
marriage in 1924, he and his wife settled there. At this residence the McKelveys
kept a large flock of hens that the artist used as subject-matter for his pictures.
(In his papers he later wrote) ‘“It was through this opportunity that I was able
to study poultry in all effects of sunlight - a subject in which I have always been
deeply interested.” Indeed, it is for his compositions of hens, often picking for
food in the dappled sunlight of a farmyard, that McKelvey is most remembered by
many admirers. Occasionally the McKelveys paid a visit, sometimes for a holiday,
to the Murphy’s farm in County Armagh and there he painted numerous studies
of farmyard scenes, such as ‘Feeding the Chickens’ and other semi-genre scenes.’
S.B Kennedy. The Back of the House is an attractive work, carefully composed and
rendered with a bright palette, dappled sunlight highlighting the main elements;
the middle ground, the figures engaged in their domestic ritual and the cottage
itself - the back of the house. Realist artists such as Jean-Francois Millet (1814-
75) would evidently have been an influence on the artist in his attention shown to
subjects drawn from everyday life and farming. Also the intimacy of the farmyard/
orchard setting was one that Walter Osborne would have explored in works such
Apple Gathering, Quimperlé 1883 and such genre studies would have interested
McKelvey,which he would then treat in his looser individual manner.The farmyard
as a subject was one he revisited on many occasions for over forty years.
€9,000 - 12,000

79

80
Waterville, Co.Kerry
Oil on canvas laid on board, 40.5 x 46cm (16 x 18”)
Signed
Provenance: Combridge Gallery, Dublin, 1946, by whom
lent for a time to the Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin; thence
the artist’s studio; Mrs McAreavey, acquired from Mabel
Young in 1962; from the estate of the late James Gibson
Exhibited: Paintings by Paul Henry, R.H.A., Combridge’s
Gallery, Dublin, 23 October-6 November 1945 (catalogue
number 9, as Waterville); Pictures by Paul Henry, RHA,
Heal & Son, Tottenham Court Road, London, from 14
January 1946 (5); Paintings and Charcoals: Paul Henry RHA,
Waddington Galleries, South Anne Street, Dublin, 21
February- 3 March 1952 (21); Paintings and Drawings by
Paul Henry, The Studio, Sidmonton Square, Bray, until 8
November 1956 (10); Paul Henry: Retrospective Exhibition,
Ritchie Hendriks Gallery, St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin,
and Belfast Museum & Art Gallery, Belfast, May-July
1957 (10); Paul Henry: Paintings and Drawings, Shannon
Airport, Limerick, August 1957 (10)
Literature: S. B. Kennedy: Paul Henry, 2000, p. 136;
Illustrations, 2007, pp. 82, 308, catalogue number 1063
(both the 2000 and 2007 books published in New Haven
and London by Yale University Press)
This is probably the picture of this title that Paul Henry first
exhibited at the Combridge Gallery, Dublin, in October
1945. It was almost certainly painted in the summer of
that year when Henry and his second wife, Mabel Young,
stayed at the Great Southern Hotel in Waterville.They had
first visited the Iveragh Peninsula a decade earlier, in 1932,
staying on the northern side of the Peninsula at Glenbeigh.
Paul was enchanted by the area. ‘It is lovely. Wherever
one turns there is material for dozens of pictures … I felt
that if I spent a lifetime … I would never exhaust all the
possible subjects,’he wrote to a friend, James Healy, in New
York (letter of 13 December 1934, Healy Papers, Stanford
University Libraries).The Peninsula produced a paler key in
his paintings, as the Irish Times commented (7 May 1935),
which contrasts with the heavier, more brooding works of
the late 1920s and early 1930s when his marriage to his
first wife, Grace, was breaking up and at a time when he
had other domestic difficulties. By 1945, with a much more
settled lifestyle, Paul and Mabel returned to Kerry-there is
no record of their having been there since the 1930s-and,
staying at Waterville, they used that as a base to explore
much of the Peninsula. The area around Waterville has
welcomed many celebrities over the years,the most notable,
perhaps, being Walt Disney and Charlie Chaplin. The
Iveragh Peninsula, of course, is traversed by the famous
Ring of Kerry tourist route.
The stretch of water depicted in this composition is
probably Lough Currane, which lies immediately to
the east of Waterville, which is the town crowning the
hilltop in the middle distance. The ‘paler key’ that typifies
Henry’s work in these late years of his painting career-he
suffered almost total blindness shortly after this picture
was painted-is well seen in this composition, where the
mounting cumulus clouds in the sky are reflected in the
sea in the foreground, which is almost without detailing of
any sort, save for the masterly dexterity of the brushwork.
In this regard, Waterville, Co, Kerry may be compared with
one of Henry’s finest late works, Kinsale, of 1939 (Kennedy,
2007, number 994).
For a discussion of Henry’s other Iveragh Peninsula pictures
see S. B. Kennedy, Paul Henry’s Iveragh Paintings, in John
Crowley & John Sheehan (eds.), The Iveragh Peninsula: A
Cultural Atlas of the Ring of Kerry, Cork Cork University
Press, 2009, pp.441-4.
€50,000 - 80,000

81

82
66 James Humbert Craig RHA RUA
(1878-1944)
Cattle in a Landscape
Oil on board, 25.5 x 35.5cm (10 x 14”)
Signed
€2,000 - 4,000
65 Rowland Hill ARUA (1915-1979)
Figure by Cottages
Oil on canvas, 35.5 x 51cm (14 x 20”)
Signed
€400 - 600

83
Collecting Turf, Glaneen, Cushendall
Oil on canvasboard, 25.5 x 35.5cm (10 x 14”)
Signed
€3,000 - 5,000

84
68 Attributed to James Humbert Craig
RHA RUA (1878-1944)
Fishermen by boat
Provenance: From the estate of the late
James Gibson
€300 - 500
Mountain Landscape with Cottages
Oil on board, 28 x 35.5cm (11 x 14”)
Signed
Provenance: Sold Adams, Dublin, 24 March 1977 Cat No. 41, as Cottages by the Lake, Outer Killary,
Connemara; from the estate of the late James Gibson
Although one cannot be certain, the profile of the mountains that dominate this scene are similar to those
in other Henry pictures of these years, such as West of Ireland Cottages c. 1926-30 (Kennedy, ongoing
cataloguing, number 1253) and Cottages, West of Ireland, 1928-30 (Kennedy, 2007, number 689, reproduced).
The handling of the paint,which is relatively ‘dry’,and the brushwork suggest a date of execution of 1926-30.
The barest hint of the direction of the overcast light that sets the mood of the painting is typical of Henry
and its brooding nature, derived from the towering mountains, illustrates the growing personal difficulties
that dominated his life in these years.Mountain Landscape with Cottages is numbered 1272 in S.B.Kennedy’s
ongoing cataloguing of Paul Henry’s oeuvre.
€30,000 - 50,000

85

86
70 Irish School, (c.19th Century)
Figures by the Coast
Oil on panel, 12 x 19.5cm (4¾ x 7 ¾”)
€300 - 500
71 William Conor RHA RUA ROI OBE (1881-1968)
Aw You
Linoprint, handcoloured by the artist, 10 x 7.5cm (4 x 3”)
Signed, inscribed in pencil lower left
Provenance: R.B. Jackson Collection; Bell Gallery, Belfast;
From the estate of the late James Gibson
€200 - 400

87
Boats in Harbour, with Children Playing on the Beach
Oil on board, 28 x 39cm (11 x 15½”)
Signed, John Magee Gallery label verso
€5,000 - 7,000

88
73 Hans Iten RUA (1874-1930)
Hayfield, Belvoir Park
Oil on board, 15 x 21.5cm (6 x 8½”)
Provenance: W. Rodman & Co.;
From the estate of the late James Gibson
€1,000 - 2,000
74 Hans Iten RUA RUA (1874-1930)
Belvoir Park
Oil on board 15 x 21.5cm (6 x 8½”)
Signed
Provenance: W. Rodman & Co.; Ross’s, Belfast,
15/11/1990, Lot 428; from the estate
of the late James Gibson
€1,000 - 1,500

89
75 Hans Iten RUA (1874-1930)
The Lagan Path
Oil on board, 15 x 22cm (6 x 8¾”)
Signed
Provenance: W. Rodman & Co., 1979; From the estate of the late James Gibson
€1,500 - 2,500

90
76 Hans Iten RUA (1874-1930)
Path through Trees
Oil on panel, 16.5 x 21.5cm (6½ x 8½”)
Provenance: Ross’s, Belfast, 11/12/1980,
Lot 250; From the estate of the late James
Gibson
€1,000 - 1,500
77 Hans Iten RUA (1874-1930)
Path through Trees
Oil on panel, 16.5 x 21.5cm (6½ x 8½”)
Provenance: Ross’s, Belfast, 11/12/1980,
Lot 250; From the estate of the late James
Gibson
€1,000 - 1,500

91
78 Hans Iten RUA (1874-1930)
Coastal Landscape, Islandmagee
Oil on panel, 15 x 21.5cm (6 x 8½”)
Provenance: The Artist’s Estate; Private
Collection; Bell Gallery; from the
estate of the late James Gibson
€1,000 - 1,500
79 Hans Iten RUA (1874-1930)
Blackhead, Belfast Lough
Oil on panel, 14.5 x 21cm (5¾ x 8¼”)
Provenance: The Artist’s Studio; Ross’s,
Belfast, 3/3/99, Lot 24; Private
Collection; Bell Gallery; from the
estate of the late James Gibson
€1,000 - 1,500

92
80 Charles McAuley RUA ARSA (1910-1999)
Wooded Landscape with Huts
Oil on canvasboard, 35.5 x 45cm (14 x 17¾”)
Signed
€800 - 1,200
81 Colin Middleton RHA MBE (1910-1983)
Farmhouse and Outbuildings, c.1958
Signed
This beautifully organised painting is typical of the
intriguing period in the late 1950s that Colin Middleton
spent in Portrush. Both natural and man-made forms
are brought together as an architecturally conceived
whole. The apparent solidity of form is belied by the
small deliberate brushstrokes and the carefully controlled
palette is built up from a full range of colour.
Shapes are repeated across the canvas,such as the triangles
in the gate, theee haystacks, the tree trunks and even
the triangle of sky framed between the farmhouse roof
and the top of the tree beside it. A series of intersecting
diagonals lead the eye through towards the repeated
horizontal rectangles of the buildings and the landscape
fleetingly glimpsed behind.
The scarecrow is almost lost within the compressed planes
of the field and the garden and its subdued presence
suggests something between the natural and the man-
made. Painted in the years before he embraced a more
abstract manner of working, the present work suggests
Middleton’s increasing formal interests but also his love of
farmland and his environment as well as the mischievous
wit that pervades all periods of his work.
Dickon Hall, May 2013
€4,000 - 6,000

93

94
82 Romeo C. Toogood RUA ARCA
(1902-1966)
Coastal Inlet in Village with boats
Oil on board, 49.5 x 39.5cm (19½ x 15½”)
Signed
Toogood studied at the Belfast School of Art and the
Royal College of Art in London. Returning to his
home town of Belfast in 1930 he joined a small group
of artists known as the Ulster Unit, and taught at vari-
ous high schools and institutes including the Belfast
College of Art where his students included Terence
Flanagan and Basil Blackshaw. Toogood’s work was
exhibited at the RHA, Ulster Academy of Arts, RUA
and the Piccolo Gallery in Belfast. Following his
death retrospectives were held by the Arts Council of
Northern Ireland (1978) and the Bell Gallery (1989).
€700 - 1,000

95
83 Daniel O’Neill (1920-1974)
The Road to Rostrevor
Oil on board, 46 x 61.4cm (18 x 24”)
Signed. Inscribed with title verso and framing label for Dawson Gallery, Dublin
€6,000 - 10,000

96
84 George Campbell RHA RUA (1917-1979)
Berne Street Scene
Oil and mixed media on board, 44.5 x 34.5cm
(17½ x 13½”)
Exhibited: Artists of Fame & Promise II, Leices-
ter Galleries, Leicester Square, London, August
1950, Cat. No. 179, where purchased by C.B.
Renshaw Esq. (label verso)
€2,500 - 3,500

97
85 George Campbell RHA RUA
(1917-1979)
Still Life, Evening Light
Oil on board, 49.5 x 39.5cm (19½ x 15½”)
Signed. Inscribed with title verso
Exhibited: The Ritchie Hendriks Gallery,
Dublin, August 1967 (label verso)
€3,000 - 5,000

98
In the late 1940s Gerard Dillon entered into a stipend
arrangement with Victor Waddington, which allowed him
to spend more time in Connemara. Recognizing the broad
appeal of Dillon’s narrative images, Waddington encouraged
the artist to return to Connemara in preparation for his first
solo exhibition with him in November 1950. Dillon rented a
cottage in Moyard located between Clifden and Letterfrack,
visiting the surrounding area recording local events of pony
races, tinkers and religious processions or depicting the local
people in their cottages and carrying out their daily chores of
thatching, harvesting, cutting and collecting turf.
Born in Belfast, Dillon admired both William Conor for his
portrayal of working class people in Belfast and Seán Keating’s
illustrations of J.M. Synge’s Playboy of The Western World. Both
artists recorded and highlighted the harshness of people’s lives
in an urban environment and in the West of Ireland. It is
hardly surprising, therefore when Dillon first visited the west
on a cycling trip in 1939 that he should have responded to
the people and the landscape as he did. He was immediately
enthralled by the landscape of misty hills, spongy bogs, lakes,
streams, and a patchwork design of tiny plots protected by
ancient dry stonewalls over carpets of stony land. Living among
the people on these frequent visits evoked strong feelings for
the artist, which he expressed throughout his life. Following
his exhibition at Waddington’s, one reviewer commented, “In
his paintings of the people of Connemara, Gerard Dillon is
deliberately, but not self-consciously naïve and such canvasses
…have a simple, kindly humour.”
A Wet Day, Ireland, was executed on one of these visits to
Connemara when he invited friends,George Campbell,Arthur
Armstrong,Nano Reid,and Mollie Dillon to stay with him. In
August 1950 Dillon invited other friends he met at the Abbey
Arts Centre outside London. The visitors Bernard Smith,
Leonard French and Arthur Rose were Australians belonging
to the London artists’ colony, which served as a temporary
home for a range of artists trying to get a foothold in London’s
contemporary art industry.
The composition depicts a mother protecting her bare footed
children with a homespun shawl from rain as they walk on a
bog road close to ponies. The dyed red wide skirt, the dark
cloak,mountains,blanket bogs and grey and brown ponies point
to Connemara. During the turf-cutting season, woman and
children helped to spread out the turf after the men had cut
the sods and thrown them up onto the heather to dry. With no
shelter on the bog roads, woman and children would have often
got caught in showers of rain. Woman would have worn the
generous shawl or cóta to keep warm from the prevailing winds
and its oiled wool would have acted as a barrier from the rain.
After Bernard Smith departed Moyard, Dillon wrote to him
describing the success of his sketching trips with Leonard
French due to good weather but was unable to get out when
Arthur Rose stayed, “It pissed the whole time, so he must
think Connemara is hell”. Dillon also gave a description of a
pony show in Clifden remarking on the ponies, “such unusual
colours-smoky grey as you get out of a chimney -the oaken meal
colour…it was wonderful”
Karen Reihill is currently researching the life and work of
Gerard Dillon
€20,000 - 30,000
86 Gerard Dillon (1916-1971)
A Wet Day, Ireland
Oil on board, 38.5 x 52.5cm (15 x 20½”)
Signed. Inscribed with title verso
Provenance: Sold in these rooms, Important Irish Art Sale, 5th December 2006, Lot 64

99

100
87 Gerard Dillon RHA RUA (1916-1971)
Boy Seated
Watercolour, 35.5 x 25.5cm (14 x 10”)
Signed
€2,000 - 4,000

101
88 Gerard Dillon RHA RUA (1916-1971)
Abstract
Oil on canvas, 92 x 127cm (36¼ x 50”)
Signed
Provenance: Acquired directly from the artist by the
current owner who was friend.
€2,000 - 4,000

102
89 Tom Carr, HRHA, ARWS, NEAC, HRUA (1909-1999)
Mother and Child
Oil on canvas, 49.5 x 44.5cm (19½ x 17½”)
Signed
Exhibited: Tom Carr Exhibition,Leicester Galleries,London,Novem-
ber 1946, where purchased by J. Stanley Clarke.The majority of works
on display at this exhibition were watercolours, this lot was obviously
ex-catalogue, and sold under the title Girl and Small Child
Mother and Child is a typical example of Carr’s careful observation of
those close to him - in this case, probably Stella and Veronica. The
setting is a modest kitchen or scullery with a wash top, looking out
onto the seafront in Newcastle.The focus is very much on the intimacy
between mother and child, capturing that sense of excitement and
trepidation written on the child’s face as she stands on the worktop.
The viewer’s eye is drawn to the child with her little red jumper and a
suggestion of a tee shirt underneath it.The light from the tall window
catches the hair of the mother and child and manages to draw at-
tention to a copper kettle in the foreground. The sheet or bath towel
hanging on the line, acting as a backdrop to the child was so much
part of the country scullery in those days long before central heating.
This painting, while having an echo of the Dutch painters in its es-
sence in the view of some observers, bears all the hallmarks of the
Euston Road school of painters. A decade earlier, Carr was centrally
involved with the exponents that school.Their preoccupation was with
colour, tone and fine drawing. Carr, having spent two years in Henry
Tonks’ life drawing room at the Slade learned well.
Eamonn Mallie
€5,000 - 7,000

103
90 Tom Carr HRHA, ARWS, NEAC, HRUA (1909-1999)
Beach Scene, Dundrum Bay
Oil on canvas, 45.5 x 85cm (18 x 33½”)
Signed, inscribed with title verso
Provenance: Lord & Taylor, New York
€5,000 - 7,000

104
The Slighted Child
Oil on canvas, 75 x 62.5cm (29½ x 24½”)
Signed
Provenance: The artist’s studio, which was above the Bell Gallery in
Belfast where this work was purchased by the current owners circa 1968
In 1925, Holbrook Jackson wrote ‘In the first place William Conor is
a painter of genius, and in the second place he is a painter of Belfast.
There are notes in his work that suggest he could not have painted
anywhere else, and this despite the fact that he had looked upon the
French impressionists with affection and understanding.’ John Hewitt
has also observed, ‘The inhabitants of Conor’s little streets belong to
the old economy before the Welfare State, to Belfast of the Twenties.’
In 1923, Conor wrote that he had for some time carried a sketchbook
in his pocket, ‘to note down any little happening which strike[s] me as
interesting and significant. With my sketching block held under cover
of a newspaper, I have been able to garner many happy impressions,
which I have afterwards worked up into drawings and paintings.’ The
Slighted Child suggests a painting that has been worked from an earlier
sketch, when the artist would have observed the boy, standing forlorn
and dejected following an upbraiding by the woman (his mother per-
haps) standing in a doorway further up the street, at the top left of the
painting. Most likely, the boy with his open mouth and darkly rendered
downcast eyes, has been crying due to his perceived injustice of adults -
that heartfelt emotion particular to childhood. The painting has been
pared down to its essential elements which is typical of Conor. The
focus is firmly on the child in his orange jacket, the sun hitting the top
of his head and the side of his face. The muted palette and treatment
of the terraced facade suggest a recollection on the part of Conor and
an attendant sense of nostalgia. The city of Belfast is indicated through
the backdrop of houses and the streetscape environment suggests that
houses opposite could witness The Slighted Child, a further injustice,
when clearly the child has fled outside in search of solitude to regain
composure. It is a powerful rendition of a familiar feeling recollected
from childhood. In 1926 Conor went to Philadelphia is the USA and
stayed there for nine months. According to Theo Snoddy, at that time
the artist showed at the Babcock Galleries, New York where an attrac-
tive child-study by Conor, saw the artist inundated with requests from
parents who wanted their children drawn or painted.
€10,000 - 15,000

105

106
“A Wayside Crack”
Pen, ink and crayon, 15.5 x 15.5cm (6 x 6”)
Signed
Provenance: Bell Gallery Exhibition label verso;
Property of a deceased estate, Northern Ireland
€800 - 1,200

107
Young Woman with Baby
Crayon, 36 x 26cm (14¼ x 10¼”)
Signed; John Magee Gallery label verso
€2,000 - 3,000

108
94 Elizabeth Taggart (b.1943)
“Bird Trio”
Oil on canvas, 29.25 x 29.25cm (11½ x 11½”)
Provenance: The Alexander Clayton Gallery, Stratford Upon Avon,
where purchased by current owner
€800 - 1,200
95 Elizabeth Taggart (b.1943)
“A Dream and a Day Lily”
Oil on canvas, 24.5 x 29.5cm (9½ x 11¾”)
Provenance: The Alexander Clayton Gallery, Strat-
ford Upon Avon, where purchased by current owner
€700 - 1,000

109
96 Elizabeth Taggart (b 1943)
The Drummer
Oil on canvas, 80 x 60cm (31½ x 23½”)
Signed
Exhibited: The Molesworth Gallery, Dublin
“Elizabeth Taggart” Exhibition, June 2007,
Cat. No. 6, where purchased by current owner
Literature: “Elizabeth Taggart” 2007, full page
illustration p15
€1,500 - 2,500

110
97 Harry Kernoff RHA (1900-1974)
Fishing Men, West River, Nova Scotia (1957)
Oil and pastel on board, 40.5 x 51cm (16 x 20”)
Signed
Provenance: The Smurfit Collection and their sale in these rooms, 8th December 2004, Cat. No. 113; where
purchased by the current owner
Literature: Smurfit Art Collection 2001, full page illustration p73
€4,000 - 6,000

111
98 James Dixon (1887-1970)
Gut Fishing, in Camus More, Tory Island
Oil on paper, 55 x 75cm (21½ x 29½”)
Signed, inscribed and dated “Gut Fishing in Camus More/Tory
Island/by James Dixon/14.10.64”
Provenance: Sold in these room, “Important Irish Art” sale,
December 2006, Cat. No. 174, where purchased by current owner
James Dixon is probably Ireland’s only true primitive painter
having very rarely ever ventured away from his native Tory Island
off the Northwest coast of Donegal. His discovery by the painter
Derek Hill is now legend. Observing Mr Hill painting a landscape
of the West End Village on Tory he is said to have remarked ‘’I
think I could do better’’. Hill immediately encouraged him by
sending him paints. Dixon preferred to work on paper and when
offered paint brushes he said he would make his own out of
hair from his donkey. Hill organised exhibitions of the work
of the Tory painters, the first of which took place at the New
Gallery, Belfast in 1966 but following on shortly afterwards
he had exhibitions at the Dawson Gallery, Dublin, Autodidaky
Gallery, Vienna and the Portal Gallery, London. His work
entered the collections of The Scottish National Gallery of
Modern Art, The Hugh Lane Gallery and Bournemouth Art
Gallery. His legacy lives on in what is now referred to as the
Tory Island school of painting. Homage was paid to him when
in 2000 there was a joint exhibition with that other famous
primitive painter Alfred Wallis,organised by the Irish Museum
of Modern Art and the Tate Gallery St. Ives, Cornwall
€4,000 - 6,000

112
99 Lindy Guiness (b.1941) (Marchioness of
Dufferin and Ava)
The Dining Room, Clandeboye
Oil on board, 30.5 x 61cm (12 x 24”)
Signed and dated ‘05
Exhibited: Jorgensen Fine Art, where purchased by current owner
€800 - 1,000
100 James le Jeune RHA (1910-1983)
The Vatican
Watercolour and Gouache on paper,18.5 x 23cm (7.3 x 9”)
Signed
€400 -600

113
101 Noel Murphy (b. 1970)
Urban Street Scene
Oil on canvas, 57 x 59cm (22½ x 23¼)
Signed
€1,000 - 2,000

114
102 Brian Ballard RUA (b.1943)
Standing Female Nude with Vase
of Flowers
Oil on canvas, 75 x 60cm (29½ x 23.6”)
€1,500 - 2,000

115
Reclining Female Model in Mirror
Oil on canvas, 60 x 75cm (23.6 x 29½”)
Signed and dated ‘98
€1,500 - 2,000

116
Moving Donegal
Oil on canvas, 19.5 x 30cm (7¾ x 12”)
Signed and dated 1986, artist’s label verso
€800 - 1,200
105 Mike Fitzharris (b.1952)
Seascape
Oil and graphite on board, 52 x 64cm (20½ x 25”)
Signed and dated (19)’88
Exhibited: RHA Annual Exhibition 1989
€600 - 1,000

117
106 William Crozier HRHA (1930-2011)
“The Re-planting” (2007)
Oil on canvas, 76 x 86½cm (30 x 34”)
Signed
Exhibited: “William Crozier” Exhibition, Flowers East Gallery, London, Oct/Nov 2007. This exhibition
was to launch the book on William Crozier, edited by Katharine Crouan, whom we thank for her help in
cataloguing this lot
€7,000 - 10,000

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