20 by 36in. (50.8 by 91.4cm)

Title: BRENT GEESE ON THE SALT FLATS
Note: The composition, style and colouring of Brent Geese on the Salt Flats channels various aspects of the life of the artist Norah McGuinness. By the 1960s - when the present work is likely to have been painted - Norah McGuinness' reputation in the Irish arts scene was impressive. She had received solid training in the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art in 1921, complemented by subsequent accolades and her first exhibition in the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1924. She later developed her skills abroad, first, in London at the Chelsea Polytechnic and later in Paris from 1929 to 1931 under André L'Hôte. In 1943 McGuinness was one of the founding members of the Irish Exhibition of Living Art (IELA). She later became President of the IELA following the death of Mainie Jellett in 1944 and retained this position until 1972. In 1950 she was selected alongside Nano Reid to represent Ireland at the Venice Biennale and in 1957 she was made an Honorary Member of the RHA. By the end of the decade a major retrospective exhibition of her work was held at Trinity College, Dublin in 1968. Through the years, in tandem with all these achievements, McGuinness supported herself financially through her illustration - with Vogue and Harper's Bazaar - as well as working in costume and set design for the Abbey and Peacock theatres in Dublin and window dressing for Altman's department store on Fifth Avenue, New York and for Brown Thomas in Dublin.The black outlines and limited, muted palette lends a graphic quality to the work and recall the textile designs of mid-century giants such as David Whitehead. The composition has a stage like quality to it and there is a theatricality in the broad sweeping lines and the animated movement provided by the geese. Brent geese are found in Ireland between October and April, feeding mostly on eel-grass that grows on muddy estuaries and grasslands, before departing for breeding grounds beginning in late April. In this scene the winter migrants are executed in sharper focus, drawing the eye into the scene, each bird looking in a different direction while a smaller flock appears to exit stage left. The distortion of perspective, the segmenting of the picture plane and the lozenge motif are all familiar elements of McGuinness' style from this period also. A number of examples of her work from the 1960s can be found in the permanent collection of the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin including Shore Pools (1965) and Path to the Sun (1962). McGuinness' work featured in IMMA's highly-acclaimed 2013 Analysing Cubism exhibition alongside Mainie Jellett, Evie Hone, Mary Swanzy, Fr Jack Hanlon and European painters such as Georges Braque, Albert Gleizes, Juan Gris, Henri Hayden, André L'hote and Pablo Picasso.Adelle Hughes,September 2023
Frame size: 25.5 by 42in. (64.8 by 106.7cm)

Excellent condition.

oil on canvas

signed lower right; titled on reverse