20 by 12.75in. (50.8 by 32.4cm)

Title: YOUNG WOMAN, 1961
Note: Young Woman, 1961 forms part of the Presences series, created from c.1956 to 1966. In the summer of 1955, le Brocquy was commissioned to tour Spain by Ambassador magazine on behalf of the British textile trade. The extensive tour of the country that summer signalled a turning point in his oeuvre and the genesis of this important body of work: 'One day while passing through a village in La Mancha in shimmering heat, I stopped spellbound before a small group of women and children standing against a whitewashed wall. Here the intensity of the sunlight had interposed its own revelation, absorbing these human figures into its brilliance, giving substance only to shadow. From that moment I never perceived the human presence in quite the same way. I had witnessed light as a kind of matrix from which the human being emerges and into which it ambivalently recedes ­ with which it even identifies'. Le Brocquy's revelatory vision of whiteness is curiously echoed by an earlier experience of the snow covered city while living at Albert Studios.(1) The impact of the Presences series can be felt throughout le Brocquy's career but most particularly in his penultimate series, Human Images (c.1996-2005), which further developed the Presences theme and the idea of human consciousness. We are grateful to the artist's son Pierre le Brocquy for his kind assistance in researching the present work. Footnote: 1. https://www.anne-madden.com/LeBPages/humanpresence.html

oil on board

signed and dated lower left