30 by 42in. (76.2 by 106.7cm)

Title: WRACK FOR THE FARM, 1887
Note: Though English born, William Henry Bartlett was one of the earliest artists to paint systematically - and sympathetically - the everyday lives of the people of the West of Ireland. Bartlett studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, where he entered the studio of Jean-Léon Gérôme (French, 1824-1904) and also, from 1875-77, at the Académie Julian under William-Adolphe Bouguereau (French 1825-1905), but, with long lasting influence on his art, like so many British and Irish painters of his generation, he came under the spell of the pleinairism of Jules Bastien-Lepage (French, 1848-1884). Bartlett attained compositional and technical facility in his years in Paris before returning to London in 1880. That year, his first Royal Academy (RA) exhibits included views of the Forest of Fontainebleau, however, in addition to painting at the font of French Naturalism, already by this date he was engaging with Irish subject matter. Bartlett's introduction to Ireland came, in about 1878, through an American artist 'then living just outside Galway' (Bartlett, 'The West Coast of Ireland', p. 120). This was Howard Helmick (American, 1845-1907) who had shared his Parisian education. Among the earliest of his Irish works, painted when he was just over twenty, On the Beach, Connemara, 1878 (Private collection) reveals the artist's early fluency. Bartlett based himself 'for several seasons' at Renvyle, in the hotel run from their ancestral home by the Blake family. He also worked on Achill and, further north, in Donegal, acquiring a cottage on Rutland Island. Almost all of Bartlett's Irish works feature the sea which at times - as in Fishing off the West Coast - suggests a certain contiguity with the contemporaneous productions of Winslow Homer (American, 1836-1910). In an 1894 article for the Art Journal, Bartlett described the attractions of the West of Ireland: the physical scenery, the atmospheric effects to be sampled ('luminous grey days') and the picturesque clothing and behaviour of the inhabitants (W. H. Bartlett, 'Coast Life In Connemara', p. 247). He describes several of the activities which he was to paint, for example the transport of livestock from the islands to the mainland - the subject, of his 1887 canvas Off to the Fair, Connemara (private collection). The following year he exhibited the Seal Diver: County Mayo at the RA, again a subject he was to describe in the Art Journal. Expressing regret that 'shop-made shawls are unfortunately coming more and more into general use', Bartlett was keenly attuned to local colour and has at times an almost ethnographic approach to his subject matter. His links with Ireland continued well into the twentieth century - he exhibited a Donegal scene at the Paris Salon in 1906. His square-brush, naturalist style was recognised at the time as bringing something new to the depiction of the Irish landscape. A review of the 1907 Irish International Exhibition, for example, describes him as 'more modern in type' and his Storm Bound in the Rosses as being 'illustrative of the spirit in which the modern landscape painter approaches his subject'. The review continues: 'Here is a scene absolutely true to nature, one which is instinct with the genius loci, as those who have travelled in the North-West of Donegal will freely acknowledge' (Irish Times May 16 1907). Indeed, Bartlett forms an important link between the essentially Victorian, and often sentimental, paintings of other visiting artists, such as Helmick or Francis William Topham and the figurative work of Paul Henry in his years on Achill. Bartlett continued his links with France - he was awarded a silver medal at the Paris exhibition of 1889 and held a one-man show at the Fine Art Society, 'The Basse Seine' - and though particularly captivated by the West of Ireland, he also worked in St Ives, attracted by its 'old world charm'. His Cornish paintings betray more stylistic eclecticism than the generally homogenous body of work produced in Ireland with The First Sprats of the Season, recalling Stanhope Forbes and Practicing for the Swimming Match echoing Henry Scott Tuke - both artists were his associates in the New English Art Club (illustrated W.H. Bartlett, 'Summer Time at St. Ives, Cornwall', Art Journal, 1897, pp. 292-95). Together with the stylistically related, Off to the Fair, the present work, Wrack for the Farm was exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1887, the year of its completion. In his written description of life in the West, Bartlett himself gave a vivid account of the significance to the local economy of the scene he depicts. Seaweed or 'wrack', as it is called, plays an important part in Connemara life, both in the form of manure for the land and burnt for kelp. A most picturesque scene is after a storm in the spring, when all the available population make their way to the shore with their horses and donkeys and baskets of all sorts and sizes. Into the sea they will go, gathering wrack of every kind, torn up by the rough Atlantic. It is an animated scene, and all appear to enjoy the work, joking and laughing with one another. By contrast to this remembered image of collective endeavour, here Bartlett shows the arduous nature of subsistence farming, as, set in a beautifully rendered western landscape, a family unit toils together. Bartlett was not alone in portraying the collection of seaweed on the beach. It was a subject also treated by Aloysius O'Kelly and it is likely that the two artists knew each other - O'Kelly had preceded Bartlett by two years in entering Gérôme's studio, also studying with Bouguereau. Samuel Lover and Ernest Waterlow also painted the gathering of seaweed, while Jack Yeats in his illustrations for John Millington Synge's articles on life in the West recorded its harvesting and later made it the subject of Thraw Bawn (1920), showing a young girl carrying a creel basket full of wrack. However, Bartlett arguably transcends these essentially anecdotal variations on the theme to approach closer to the - paradoxical - achievement of the great French Naturalists, notably Jean François Millet, of imbuing humble figures engaged in quotidian labour with emblematic resonance and even quasi-spiritual significance.William LaffanWe are also grateful to Prof Kenneth McConkey for his kind assistance in cataloguing this lot.
Frame dimensions: 37.5 by 49.5in. (95.3 by 125.7cm)

The canvas is taut and the painted surface appears clean. There are drying cracks visible throughout, these areas appear stable and show no signs of flaking. There is mould showing on reverse of canvas, there is none present on front of canvas. This can be easily removed but we would recommend using a professional restorer.

oil on canvas

signed and dated lower right; with Pyms Gallery label on reverse