128
121
Louis Le Brocquy, HRHA (1916-2012)
Presence (1959)
Oil and sand on board, 76 x 63.5cm (30 x 25”)
Signed and dated 1959
Provenance: !e Dawson Gallery, Dublin
Lord & Taylor, New York,
!e Flint Museum, U.S.A.
Private Collection
Exhibited:
1995 Summer Exhibition
,!e Frederick Gallery, Dub-
lin, Cat. No. 2; where purchased by the current owner
!is important work by le Brocquy is one of a series of works
called
Presence
which he carried out in the late 1950s. It was in
the collection of !e Flint Museum, Flint, Michigan, U.S.A. until
the early 1990s.
Louis le Brocquy’s Presence series was inspired by a number of
pivotal experiences in the late 1950s which caused the artist to
abandon his earlier Family series of paintings and to move from
the &gurative to an almost abstract style. Despite their ethereal
quality, however, the Presences are concerned with the human
body. In 1956 le Brocquy saw a display of Giacometti’s plaster
sculptures at the Venice Biennale. !e tall emaciated forms had
a profound impact on the Irish artist. In addition to this le Broc-
quy’s future wife, Anne Madden, was undergoing operations and
x-rays of her spine. As a result of these events the artist produced
a new series of work, the Presence or White paintings, &rst exhib-
ited in the late 1950s.!ey are concerned with the tenuous nature
of the human body both physically and metaphysically.
Ostensibly abstract, the centre of the white expanse of the paint-
ing is dominated by an extended skeletal form. !e contrasts be-
tween light and dark in the work make it di(cult to decipher what
is real and what is shadow. le Brocquy mixes sand and other mate-
rial into the paint to build up the surface as if to create real physical
form.Within the predominantly monochrome surface a myriad of
colours are evident.
Presence (1959)
is one of the more dynamic and
richly coloured examples of the series. !e rhythmic forms of the
skeleton are shrouded by a dark ghostlike form that seems to be
at variance with the other more tangible elements of the painting.
!e tension between these elements mirrors that of the spirit and
the body. Speaking of another Presence work, le Brocquy summa-
rised his intention in the series. ‘!e body appears to be dissolved
in shadow while its interior inner structure rises to the surface’.
Dr. Róisin Kennedy
!'#,### - "#,###
