22
Paul Henry RHA (1876-1958)
Estimate:
€150,000 - €200,000
Sold
€155,000
Live Auction
Important Irish Art
Size
14 by 16in. (35.6 by 40.6cm)
Description
Title: DOOEGA, ACHILL ISLAND, COUNTY MAYO
Frame size: 22 by 24in. (55.9 by 61cm)
Note: Paul Henry arrived in Achill in 1910 armed with the latest avant-garde techniques. He felt like an outsider. “I was spying out the land and it seemed exceedingly good.”(1)This painting is evidence of how he made an ally of the beauty of the place and captured the intimacy of Dooega, the name coming from the Irish Dumha Éige meaning a mound or sandbank. The artist peers up at thevillage perched on top of the sandbank, and at the clouds behind looming over the rim of the earth. The scene is mainly composed of five cottages, some trees and a glimpse of the mountain behind squeezed into the bottomthird of the canvas with the sky filling the other two thirds.The local people endured great hardship and poverty and to afford their rent had to work as harvesters in Scotland at the time. From 1910 to 1914 they organised rent protests demanding that the landlord, the Achill Mission Trust, sell the land to the Congested Districts Board. (2)This painting of a site of agitation and unrest appears calm and orderly due to Henry’s strong geometrical underpinning. The surface is dissected by adiagonal line running from the bottom right-hand corner to the top of the trees. The small space below is further broken up by other lines springing from the same corner along the roof-tops, along the top of the ridge, alongthe top and bottom of the turf stacks and the lower line of the field. Further lines can be traced radiating from this bottom right-hand corner through the clouds.From the opposite corner on the bottom left the canvas is further divided by lines radiating out along the distant mountain top, the left side of turf stacks, gable walls and the clouds. These criss-crossing lines form the central apexof the central cloud tunnelling upwards.The restricted palette and method employed resulted in a startling new appearance for Irish landscape art, the comparatively rough application of paint leaving outlines of different colours and unfinished edges in a Post-Impressionist almost Art Nouveau manner.To begin with, a thin layer of burnt umber has been painted over the whole canvas, followed by a thin layer for the sky of blue and grey almost scrubbed on, leaving some bare patches of the stained brown canvas showing as outlines at the edges of the clouds. Then umber mixed with white is used thinly again to fill in the shapes of the houses and turf stacks.A little white is added to the grey to add volume to the darker clouds leaving a dark edge on the right side of the clouds. The warmth of the underlyingcanvas comes through in the clouds on the right. Thicker white paint is applied on top strengthening the cloud outline on the left.The same white with a slight touch of yellow ochre is applied more thickly to the cottage walls and chimneys. More yellow added to white is applied directly to the thatch which is then gently edged with the blue green of the mountain and trees behind to provide ragged edges and cool shadows underneath and to add distance to the cottage to the right.Burnt umber is used more thickly for the tilled earth in the foreground and mixed with white for the thin directional ridge lines on top. The turf stacks are painted with burnt umber and white is added to lighten the left side.Yellow ochre is mixed with a little blue and white for the green field in the foreground with edges curving to the left over the top of the hill. A warmer burnt Sienna is applied in directional strokes to the earth on the left bringingit closer to the viewer.The foreground is ill-defined and in danger of being over-whelmed by the huge sky. Henry struggles with the important issue of land ownership and modernist problems of painting flatness, to balance the desire for closeness and the drive for artistic objectivity. The result is what adds such value to this painting.Dr Mary CosgroveNovember 20231. Paul Henry, An Irish Portrait 1951 p. 5.2. The land was sold to CDB in 1914. Paul Henry worked as paymaster in CDB in 1917.
Frame size: 22 by 24in. (55.9 by 61cm)
Note: Paul Henry arrived in Achill in 1910 armed with the latest avant-garde techniques. He felt like an outsider. “I was spying out the land and it seemed exceedingly good.”(1)This painting is evidence of how he made an ally of the beauty of the place and captured the intimacy of Dooega, the name coming from the Irish Dumha Éige meaning a mound or sandbank. The artist peers up at thevillage perched on top of the sandbank, and at the clouds behind looming over the rim of the earth. The scene is mainly composed of five cottages, some trees and a glimpse of the mountain behind squeezed into the bottomthird of the canvas with the sky filling the other two thirds.The local people endured great hardship and poverty and to afford their rent had to work as harvesters in Scotland at the time. From 1910 to 1914 they organised rent protests demanding that the landlord, the Achill Mission Trust, sell the land to the Congested Districts Board. (2)This painting of a site of agitation and unrest appears calm and orderly due to Henry’s strong geometrical underpinning. The surface is dissected by adiagonal line running from the bottom right-hand corner to the top of the trees. The small space below is further broken up by other lines springing from the same corner along the roof-tops, along the top of the ridge, alongthe top and bottom of the turf stacks and the lower line of the field. Further lines can be traced radiating from this bottom right-hand corner through the clouds.From the opposite corner on the bottom left the canvas is further divided by lines radiating out along the distant mountain top, the left side of turf stacks, gable walls and the clouds. These criss-crossing lines form the central apexof the central cloud tunnelling upwards.The restricted palette and method employed resulted in a startling new appearance for Irish landscape art, the comparatively rough application of paint leaving outlines of different colours and unfinished edges in a Post-Impressionist almost Art Nouveau manner.To begin with, a thin layer of burnt umber has been painted over the whole canvas, followed by a thin layer for the sky of blue and grey almost scrubbed on, leaving some bare patches of the stained brown canvas showing as outlines at the edges of the clouds. Then umber mixed with white is used thinly again to fill in the shapes of the houses and turf stacks.A little white is added to the grey to add volume to the darker clouds leaving a dark edge on the right side of the clouds. The warmth of the underlyingcanvas comes through in the clouds on the right. Thicker white paint is applied on top strengthening the cloud outline on the left.The same white with a slight touch of yellow ochre is applied more thickly to the cottage walls and chimneys. More yellow added to white is applied directly to the thatch which is then gently edged with the blue green of the mountain and trees behind to provide ragged edges and cool shadows underneath and to add distance to the cottage to the right.Burnt umber is used more thickly for the tilled earth in the foreground and mixed with white for the thin directional ridge lines on top. The turf stacks are painted with burnt umber and white is added to lighten the left side.Yellow ochre is mixed with a little blue and white for the green field in the foreground with edges curving to the left over the top of the hill. A warmer burnt Sienna is applied in directional strokes to the earth on the left bringingit closer to the viewer.The foreground is ill-defined and in danger of being over-whelmed by the huge sky. Henry struggles with the important issue of land ownership and modernist problems of painting flatness, to balance the desire for closeness and the drive for artistic objectivity. The result is what adds such value to this painting.Dr Mary CosgroveNovember 20231. Paul Henry, An Irish Portrait 1951 p. 5.2. The land was sold to CDB in 1914. Paul Henry worked as paymaster in CDB in 1917.
Condition
This work appears to be in very good condition. It was professionally cleaned prior to auction.
Medium
oil on canvas
Signature
signed lower left; titled on reverse
Provenance
With the family of the previous owner since the 1920s;Adam's, 5 December 2006, lot 90;Private collection
