West of Ireland Cottages

Paul Henry often made paintings from drawings done perhaps years earlier. Consequently his pictures can be difficult to date and, too, he often painted variations on a theme. Thus this picture is similar in composition to, and probably represents the same scene as, his Roadside Cottages, Connemara and the same mountains appear in In the West of Ireland (see S.B. Kennedy, Paul Henry: with a catalogue of the Drawings, Paintings, Illustrations, New Haven and London, 2007, nos. 662 and 738 respectively), which date from the same period. The setting cannot be identified, but the mountains may form part of the so-called 'Twelve Pins', which dominate the area around Kylemore Abbey, near Clifden, in Connemara, where Henry frequently worked. The treatment of the sky, with clouds dragged horizontally across the picture plane, are characteristic of Henry's work of the late 1920s.

West of Ireland Cottages is numbered 1253 in S.B. Kennedy's ongoing cataloguing of Paul Henry's oeuvre.

Hugh Fraser was a keen collector of art, an avid historian, a character and a personal friend of many artists. It is believed by his family that he probably purchased this painting directly from Paul Henry.

We are very grateful to Dr. Brian Kennedy for preparing the catalogue entries for lots 32-34.