British and Irish Art Articles

By Bernard Williams

Paul Henry, R.H.A. (1876-1958) The Solitary Turf Gatherer signed 'PAUL.HENRY' (lower right)
oil on canvas
12 x 17 in. (30.5 x 43.2 cm.)
Painted in 1917-18
Sold for £243,200
London, May 2006



George Campbell (1917-1974)
Still Life
signed 'Campbell' (lower left)
oil on board
23½ x 17¼ in. (59.7 x 44 cm.)
Sold for £26,400
London, May 2006



Jack Butler Yeats, R.H.A. (1871-1957)
On the Court House Steps
signed 'JACK B./YEATS' (lower right) and inscribed 'ON THE COURT HOUSE STEPS' (on the inside of the stretcher bar)
oil on canvas
14 x 18 in. (35.5 x 45.7 cm.)
Painted in 1946
Sold for £120,000
London, May 2006

When Christie's London devoted a May sale to Irish art in 1996, we helped create what is now referred to by the Irish as 'the Cheltenham Gold Cup of the Art World'. Indeed the Irish theme continues in many St. James's and Bond Street galleries with Irish works replacing their British contemporaries in many windows.

Our 10th Anniversary Irish sale contains many fine works by the more international artists such as Sir John Lavery, Sir William Orpen and Jack Butler Yeats but also some of the more domestic painters who now have an international stage.

Belfast-born Paul Henry was one such artist who trained under the American artist Whistler in Paris, tried making a living as an illustrator in London, but it was only in 1910 when he went on holiday with his wife Grace to Achill island off the rugged coast of Co.Mayo that he found the subject-matter that he had subconsciously been seeking. The Henrys went for two weeks and stayed for nine years.

The inhabitants of this stony island toiled unrelentingly to survive and Henry painted them launching their flimsy currachs into the Atlantic swell or gathering the only fuel as in The Solitary Turf Gather. This recently rediscovered gem shows a woman bowed under the weight of a mighty creel of shinning dark turf. Her red petticoat was almost universally worn by the peasantry of the west of Ireland in Henry's time.

Jack Butler Yeats was also inspired by what he saw in the west of Ireland during his teenage years spent with his grandparents in Co. Sligo. Over the fifty-odd years spent in his studio he often returns to the memories of the excitements of his youth such as race meetings, circuses or other itinerant shows that came to town. Travellers and tramps are often featured in his paintings as in The Court House Steps one of over 70 oils painted in 1946 when Yeats then in his seventies had a sustained burst of creative activity. A year later his greatest admirer, companion and wife 'Cottie' died bringing an end for a while to this impressive output.

Two later artists who also fled to the west for inspiration were Gerard Dillon and George Campbell. They were friends having met at an exhibition in Belfast in 1943, where they exhibited together the next year, but because of the war, little was sold. In lieu of a debt Dillon was lent a cottage on the isle of Inislacken off Roundstone in Co. Galway where he painted the locals as in Connemara Lads.

The sale also includes four paintings from the family of Gerard Dillon, including a portrait of Madge Campbell, George's wife. Campbell also painted the landscapes of Connemara but, having been influenced by the Irish artists who had studied cubism in Paris under Albert Gleizes, he produced some wonderful studio interiors such as Still life. Painted in Ireland, exhibited and sold in England, like most of the Irish paintings we have sold over the last ten years it will probably be returning home.

Bernard Williams is International Director for Irish Art at Christie's London

Article appeared in the May/June 2006 issue of Christie's Magazine