20.50 by 20in. (52.1 by 50.8cm)

Title: THE TALLYMAN'S WIFE
Note: The figure in this study, The Tallyman's Wife, made her first appearance, albeit facing in the opposite direction, in a painting entitled The Overman (1930-31), exhibited in 1931. (1) However, the faint wording in the artist's hand, which appears to read '… of Science' and 'steam turbo tunnel', suggests that this example was made as a study for the artist's mural for the World's Fair in New York in 1939. The theme of the Fair was 'Building the World of Tomorrow', and the Irish government agreed to exhibit, in spite of trouble in Europe, and the expense involved, because the authorities in New York agreed to give Ireland 5000 square foot of free exhibition space in an area known as 'The Hall of Nations'. That building was used to exhibit elements of Ireland's culture and history, including a large-scale mural by Maurice MacGonigal, and a stained-glass window by Evie Hone which is now housed in Government Buildings, Dublin. Keating showed another work, Race of the Gael, in the IBM Hall of Science, which may account for some of the wording on the sketch. The better-known building, Michael Scott's so-called 'Shamrock Pavilion' was used for physical displays of Ireland's modern developments and industries. Keating was commissioned to paint a large-scale mural to decorate the inside of the 'Shamrock Pavilion'. Destroyed onsite in 1941, the mural featured the only full-scale image of the 'Shannon Scheme' that Keating ever painted, which showed the enormous scale of the steam turbos - hence the lettering 'steam turbo tunnel' on the sketch - along with Aer Lingus' first aeroplane, and a new cement factory. Seated to the bottom right of Keating's mural was the woman from The Overman, this time she was cast in an entirely different role. With her bucket of flowers, she emblematically reminded visitors to the pavilion of Irish-born playwright and critic, George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), and his original stage play, Pygmalion. Keating was a keen admirer of Shaw's work. In its original stage version, Shaw set up a classic plot; a lower-class woman cleaned up by an upper-class professor, with a strong subtext about a union between the two. But Shaw subverted the plot by insisting on Doolittle's liberation from her mentor, thereby offering a suggestive metaphor for Keating and his viewers at the time. Shaw's Eliza Doolittle, a role written for Mrs Patrick Campbell, and first performed by her in London in 1914, had been a flower seller. The artist reused the sketch again for a study in pastel entitled Study for Eliza Doolittle, and an associated oil painting, entitled Eliza Doolittle in Dublin, both of which were exhibited with The Bell Gallery, Belfast, in 1965.1. The Overman (1930-31) was exhibited in the Royal Glasgow Institute of Fine Art in 1931 and is now in the collection of ESB.Dr Éimear O'Connor HRHAAuthor: Seán Keating: Art, Politics, and Building the Irish Nation (Kildare: Irish Academic Press, 2013)Research Associate, HI, UCDAugust 2019.

pastel

signed lower right