20 by 24in. (50.8 by 61cm)

Title: THE BLUE HILLS OF CONNEMARA, 1933
Note: Dr S.B. Kennedy notes in his catalogue raisonné on the artist that the present work is, ‘inscribed with the title and date on reverse. Reproduced as a colour print by the Combridge Gallery, Dublin, c.1937.There is a sense of agelessness to the work of Paul Henry that has endured the test of time and trends. From the period of 1929 to 1933 - when the present work was painted – Paul Henry’s reputation in Irish art was secured and this was partly as a result of the mass distribution of tourism posters incorporating images of his works as well as the sale of photolithographic prints from his original oils, many of which were sold through Combridge’s Fine Art, Dublin from the 1930s. Kennedy notes that, …”By the late 1920s he had, almost single-handedly, defined a way of seeing and an attitude towards the Irish landscape that was convincing, would endure and which, in part, helped to formulate a popular vision of Irish identity. Added to this he had introduced a degree of realism to Irish painting that was to prove influential on a number – one might almost say a ‘school’ – of followers, of whom his fellow Northerners James Humbert Craig and Frank McKelvey are perhaps the best remembered… The views and attitudes established by these artists usually depict a rural world of men and women at ease with themselves and their surroundings; it was widely projected in publications of the time, for example Saorstát Eireann, Irish Free State Official Handbook” which was published in 1932, the year before the present work was painted.It was of course fantasy, but it endured. Perhaps it was necessary, for after 1922 the new state urgently required a sense of identity and cultural history that would link its ancient past in a morally unbroken way with the present. Thus, with the subsequent espousal of the West in particular the landscape qua place suddenly assumed an importance it had never had before… In this process, Henry’s work fitted the bill beautifully.” The 1930s was a pivotal decade for Paul Henry which saw him exhibit extensively in Europe, the United States and in Dublin, from 1930, with Combridge’s Gallery which hosted the first of two one man shows that year and became his regular Dublin venue for the next two decades. Kennedys notes, “This period in Henry’s oeuvre demonstrates his particular understanding of the landscape borne through the experience of living in such places, a consciousness of the soft subtle terrain and dankness of the bog, the meagre lifestyle of the people it supports and the paucity of any crops grown there, the moody stillness of the scene with its suggestion of a life unchanged for centuries.” This sizeable work in oil - The Blue Hills Connemara - was acquired by Eustace Shott in the late 1940s from Combridge’s. That the painting had been specifically selected for reproduction by the gallery in 1937 as a photolithographic print is significant and demonstrates the strength of the work in terms of both its artistic merit and its innate power to communicate that sense of Irishness and identity to artistic audiences and the wider general public at that time. Kennedy observes, “…Because such images are familiar to us, notably through their widespread reproduction – during the artist’s lifetime and since – it is easy to ignore the achievement that they represent. Previously depictions of the West were in the main romantic and stereotypical… it was only after Jack B. Yeats went there in the early 1900s that a more realistic view of the landscape and of the life of its people began to emerge...” .Thus The Blue Hills Connemara will be at once both familiar and novel to those viewing the original oil painting some 80 years since it sold into a private Irish collection. For further reading see Kennedy, chapters nine and ten, p67-73.
Frame dimensions: 29 by 33in. (73.7 by 83.8cm)

This work appears to be in excellent condition.

oil on canvas

signed lower right; titled in pencil on stretcher on reverse