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Lot Essay
Oliver Joseph St John Gogarty (1878-1957) was born in Dublin, the son of a medical practitioner. He was educated at Mungret College, a Jesuit school near Limerick, at Stonyhurst and at Clongowes Wood College in Co. Kildare. After attending first-year lectures at the Royal University of Ireland, he entered the medical school at Trinity College, Dublin, where he soon gained a reputation as a wit, literary talent and sportsman; he was three-times winner of the vice-chancellor's prize for English verse and spent two terms at Worcester College, Oxford competing for the University's Newdigate prize. He achieved second place but achieved more spectacular success through his drinking escapades.
Back in Dublin he frequented the steps outside the National Library meeting other students of the 'Royal', amongst them James Joyce who became a close friend. In 1904 he rented a Martello tower in Sandycove as a retreat for the two writers and Gogarty was later depicted in Joyce's Ulysses, caricatured as the ebullient Buck Mulligan. He became closely involved in politics and spoke at Sinn Fein's first annual convention on 25 November 1905, the inauguration of the party which was to secure national independence. His speech was reported in Arthur Griffith's paper, the United Irishman.
After his marriage to Martha Duane He took his medical degree in 1907 and thereafter made rapid progress in his chosen career. After postgraduate study in Vienna he became an extremely successful ear, nose and throat surgeon to the Richmond Hospital. As well as achieving a reputation as a skilful surgeon, he became an active voice in calling for the improvement of conditions and medical care for underprivileged children. To get his message across to the general public, he wrote three plays on the subject, Blight, the Tragedy of Dublin, A Serious Thing and The Enchanted Trousers, using pseudonyms so as to pacify the General Medical Council. There followed several books of poems, published in Dublin and New York. The Collected Poems of Oliver St John Gogarty was published in London in 1951. He published several ambitious prose works, one of which As I was going Down Sackville Street (1937), lead to an action for libel.
In 1917 Gogarty bought Renvyle House in Connemara where he entertained many influential friends. W B Yeats and his new wife were offered it for their honeymoon and Augustus John immortalised the landscape in paint.
He allied himself closely with the pro-treaty group, being a close friend of Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins. In 1922 he was appointed to the Irish Free State Senate but in January 1923 was kidnapped by armed men from his house in Dublin. He managed to escape by swimming the icy river Liffey but Renvyle House was later destroyed by arsonists.
At the start of World War II, he was turned down by the RAF on grounds of age and he subsequently travelled to America on a lecture tour. He settled in New York, became an American citizen and died there in 1957. His remains were buried in his native Connemara.
Gogarty's literary success, which perhaps had more to do with his ebullient personality than its quality, antagonized many of his contemporaries but was praised highly by others such as W B Yeats.
Gerald Leslie Brockhurst (1890-1978) was one of the most celebrated portrait painters of the inter war period. His sitters included Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor (National Portrait Gallery, London), John Paul Getty and Marlene Dietrich who are all depicted with coolness, technical perfection and an overt classicism.
After studying at the Birmingham School of Art, Brockhurst went on to the Royal Academy where, for 'A design for a figure picture' he won a gold medal and a travelling scholarship which he used to travel to Italy in 1912. The influence of the Renaissance, in particular the works of Piero della Francesca and Leonardo da Vinci, can be seen in his portraits which often have an unearthly atmosphere where the sitter appears to float in front of a idealised landscape with a flattened perspective and muted pallet.
On their return from Italy Brockhurst and his wife Anais settled, for five years, in Ireland and he became increasingly involved in the artistic circles of Augustus John. The present picture dates from 1916, the year of his first major exhibition which launched his career as a society portrait painter. It was painted at Garranban House, Moyard, Co. Galway, the home of the sitter's sister-in-law. Gogarty is depicted in a reticent and thoughtful pose in the foreground of the picture plane, but instead of the idealised Italianate landscapes, which characterised his later works, Gogarty is set before a realistic depiction of the Co Galway landscape.
Back in Dublin he frequented the steps outside the National Library meeting other students of the 'Royal', amongst them James Joyce who became a close friend. In 1904 he rented a Martello tower in Sandycove as a retreat for the two writers and Gogarty was later depicted in Joyce's Ulysses, caricatured as the ebullient Buck Mulligan. He became closely involved in politics and spoke at Sinn Fein's first annual convention on 25 November 1905, the inauguration of the party which was to secure national independence. His speech was reported in Arthur Griffith's paper, the United Irishman.
After his marriage to Martha Duane He took his medical degree in 1907 and thereafter made rapid progress in his chosen career. After postgraduate study in Vienna he became an extremely successful ear, nose and throat surgeon to the Richmond Hospital. As well as achieving a reputation as a skilful surgeon, he became an active voice in calling for the improvement of conditions and medical care for underprivileged children. To get his message across to the general public, he wrote three plays on the subject, Blight, the Tragedy of Dublin, A Serious Thing and The Enchanted Trousers, using pseudonyms so as to pacify the General Medical Council. There followed several books of poems, published in Dublin and New York. The Collected Poems of Oliver St John Gogarty was published in London in 1951. He published several ambitious prose works, one of which As I was going Down Sackville Street (1937), lead to an action for libel.
In 1917 Gogarty bought Renvyle House in Connemara where he entertained many influential friends. W B Yeats and his new wife were offered it for their honeymoon and Augustus John immortalised the landscape in paint.
He allied himself closely with the pro-treaty group, being a close friend of Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins. In 1922 he was appointed to the Irish Free State Senate but in January 1923 was kidnapped by armed men from his house in Dublin. He managed to escape by swimming the icy river Liffey but Renvyle House was later destroyed by arsonists.
At the start of World War II, he was turned down by the RAF on grounds of age and he subsequently travelled to America on a lecture tour. He settled in New York, became an American citizen and died there in 1957. His remains were buried in his native Connemara.
Gogarty's literary success, which perhaps had more to do with his ebullient personality than its quality, antagonized many of his contemporaries but was praised highly by others such as W B Yeats.
Gerald Leslie Brockhurst (1890-1978) was one of the most celebrated portrait painters of the inter war period. His sitters included Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor (National Portrait Gallery, London), John Paul Getty and Marlene Dietrich who are all depicted with coolness, technical perfection and an overt classicism.
After studying at the Birmingham School of Art, Brockhurst went on to the Royal Academy where, for 'A design for a figure picture' he won a gold medal and a travelling scholarship which he used to travel to Italy in 1912. The influence of the Renaissance, in particular the works of Piero della Francesca and Leonardo da Vinci, can be seen in his portraits which often have an unearthly atmosphere where the sitter appears to float in front of a idealised landscape with a flattened perspective and muted pallet.
On their return from Italy Brockhurst and his wife Anais settled, for five years, in Ireland and he became increasingly involved in the artistic circles of Augustus John. The present picture dates from 1916, the year of his first major exhibition which launched his career as a society portrait painter. It was painted at Garranban House, Moyard, Co. Galway, the home of the sitter's sister-in-law. Gogarty is depicted in a reticent and thoughtful pose in the foreground of the picture plane, but instead of the idealised Italianate landscapes, which characterised his later works, Gogarty is set before a realistic depiction of the Co Galway landscape.