46
Patrick Hennessy RHA (1915-1980)
Estimate:
€8,000 - €10,000
Sold
€7,500
Live Auction
Irish & International Art
Size
40 by 24in. (101.6 by 61cm)
Description
Title: FIGURES ON A STAIRCASE, YORK STREET, DUBLIN, 1942
Note: Painting of Crucifixion on reverse.Here one woman can be seen reading the newspaper on the landing of a building. Another woman looks out nervously from her doorway. We wonder if some news is expected from the front – or worse, a list of casualties. York Street, off St Stephens Green in Dublin, was the site of a terrace of grand Georgian houses that had become some of the worst tenements in the city. They were pulled down in the 1960s to make way for modern social housing. Many photographers like Elinor Wilshire had recorded them before this as their condition was so shocking. In York Street Hennessy was documenting some of the grimmest poverty to be found anywhere in the country. Large families were crowded into single rooms; there was almost no sanitation, and privacy non-existent – a feature indicated by the nosy-neighbour who is ever-present.
Note: Painting of Crucifixion on reverse.Here one woman can be seen reading the newspaper on the landing of a building. Another woman looks out nervously from her doorway. We wonder if some news is expected from the front – or worse, a list of casualties. York Street, off St Stephens Green in Dublin, was the site of a terrace of grand Georgian houses that had become some of the worst tenements in the city. They were pulled down in the 1960s to make way for modern social housing. Many photographers like Elinor Wilshire had recorded them before this as their condition was so shocking. In York Street Hennessy was documenting some of the grimmest poverty to be found anywhere in the country. Large families were crowded into single rooms; there was almost no sanitation, and privacy non-existent – a feature indicated by the nosy-neighbour who is ever-present.
Medium
oil on canvas
Signature
signed and dated lower right
Provenance
Gifted by the artist to the previous owner;Gorry Gallery, Dublin, 1995;Private collection
Exhibited
'An Exhibition of 18th, 19th and 20th Century Irish Paintings', Gorry Gallery, Dublin, December 1995, catalogue no. 18
