63
Donald Teskey RHA (b.1956)
Estimate:
€30,000 - €40,000
Passed
Live Auction
Important Irish Art
Size
43 by 48in. (109.2 by 121.9cm)
Description
Title: CUMBERLAND STREET SOUTH, DUBLIN, 2001
Note: Probably Ireland's best known contemporary landscape painter, Donald Teskey is rightly celebrated for his striking shoreline landscapes based on the Western Seaboard, particularly around northwest Mayo. His formative introduction to the Atlantic followed an invitation to paint at the Ballinglen Art Foundation in Ballycastle in the mid-1990s. Prior to that, he was better known as a painter of the urban landscape, from Limerick, where he attended art school, to Dublin, where he has mostly been based since. In fact, urban and inland settings have been continually central to his work. Unusually, drawing was his primary medium until, in the early 1990s, he began using oil in vivid, atmospheric paintings of Dublin. From the start, there was a vigorous immediacy to his studies of the city. He liked the older, weathered quarters: the canyon-like streets around the old Guinness Brewery complex in Dublin 8, for example. And he loved the spatial complexity of infrastructural evolution, the different levels and layers of roads and paths, lanes, rail lines, canals and power cables. Following his working trips to Mayo and West Cork, an awareness of the Liffey, the docks and the sea became enhanced in his Dublin paintings. One can sense the proximity of Dublin Bay in the watery light of this Cumberland Street South study, not least in the way moisture in the air enhances colour intensity. The setting is very much part of the old, industrial city and it has that air of durability and erosion you find in a natural coastal landscape, a product of weather and time. Light glares brilliantly through the tunnel formed by the rail lines crossing overhead from Pearse Station on Westland Row. Of Palatine descent, Teskey was born in Rathkeale, Co Limerick and studied at Limerick School of Art and Design. His technical excellence was apparent from early on, in virtuoso drawings of run-down, marginal urban locations. His drawings had a tremendous physicality that translated perfectly to painting. He has noted his use of trowels and knives as well as brushes in works that convey the changeable, dynamic character of Irish weather and light. His work is included in numerous private and public collections.Aidan Dunne,April 2024
Note: Probably Ireland's best known contemporary landscape painter, Donald Teskey is rightly celebrated for his striking shoreline landscapes based on the Western Seaboard, particularly around northwest Mayo. His formative introduction to the Atlantic followed an invitation to paint at the Ballinglen Art Foundation in Ballycastle in the mid-1990s. Prior to that, he was better known as a painter of the urban landscape, from Limerick, where he attended art school, to Dublin, where he has mostly been based since. In fact, urban and inland settings have been continually central to his work. Unusually, drawing was his primary medium until, in the early 1990s, he began using oil in vivid, atmospheric paintings of Dublin. From the start, there was a vigorous immediacy to his studies of the city. He liked the older, weathered quarters: the canyon-like streets around the old Guinness Brewery complex in Dublin 8, for example. And he loved the spatial complexity of infrastructural evolution, the different levels and layers of roads and paths, lanes, rail lines, canals and power cables. Following his working trips to Mayo and West Cork, an awareness of the Liffey, the docks and the sea became enhanced in his Dublin paintings. One can sense the proximity of Dublin Bay in the watery light of this Cumberland Street South study, not least in the way moisture in the air enhances colour intensity. The setting is very much part of the old, industrial city and it has that air of durability and erosion you find in a natural coastal landscape, a product of weather and time. Light glares brilliantly through the tunnel formed by the rail lines crossing overhead from Pearse Station on Westland Row. Of Palatine descent, Teskey was born in Rathkeale, Co Limerick and studied at Limerick School of Art and Design. His technical excellence was apparent from early on, in virtuoso drawings of run-down, marginal urban locations. His drawings had a tremendous physicality that translated perfectly to painting. He has noted his use of trowels and knives as well as brushes in works that convey the changeable, dynamic character of Irish weather and light. His work is included in numerous private and public collections.Aidan Dunne,April 2024
Condition
Excellent condition.
Medium
oil on canvas; (unframed)
Signature
signed lower right; signed, titled and dated on reverse
Provenance
Taylor Gallery, Belfast;Private collection
