36
26
Frank McKelvey RHA RUA (1895-1974)
Landscape in Co. Armagh
Oil on canvas, 68.5 x 86.5cm (27 x 34”)
Signed.
Exhibited: RHA Annual Exhibition 1955 Cat. No. 104
under the title Landscape in Co. Antrim.
Frank McKelvey Retrospective Exhibition
!e
Ulster Museum March/April 1993.
Literature: “Frank McKelvey” by Dr SB Kennedy 1993
illustrated P74 in artists home
Provenance: From the artist’s personal collection and thence
by descent to the current owner
Maírín Allen has written of the artist, ‘For the most part, he
paints or sketches direct from nature. His summers, spent
in the country...are &lled with amazing activity. As long as
the light lasts he paints...making rapid oil sketches, which
he may &nish on the spot, or may expand on larger canvases
at his leisure.’ ‘Landscape in Co. Armagh’ c.1950-5 is typical
of McKelvey’s landscape work and it features a pastoral vista
that o)ers a calm and contemplative mood. A small group
of four cattle are depicted at a bend in the road beneath the
trees. !e entire composition is bathed in the light of high
summer and there are strategically placed rays of sunlight on
the road that lead the eye toward the cattle and also highlight
the livestock itself. !e trees to left foreground and right
middle ground frame the landscape and McKelvey’s expert
treatment of skies completes the composition. McKelvey
o)ers a more colourful twentieth century equivalent of
Hugh Frazer’s landscape vignettes in this appealing view
of the Armagh countryside. S.B.Kennedy has observed ‘In
essence he was a Romantic... he had a sharp eye and could,
with apparent ease, penetrate the essentials of his subject and
set it down with a matching exactitude.’ McKelvey made a
signi&cant contribution to Irish painting. In terms of the
‘evolution of landscape painting in Ireland in those years it
is notable how the driving force was an Ulster-inspired a)air
and its main protagonists - Paul Henry, J.H. Craig, Frank
McKelvey, Charles Lamb - each had his own distinctive
technique, yet collectively, as the Irish Times pointed out as
early as 1925, they had the homogeneity of a distinct school.’
(Kennedy). !is painting was clearly a work that the artist
himself rated highly. In a photograph of McKelvey at his
home c.1960, the painting has pride of place above the
mantelpiece with McKelvey standing before it.
Marianne O’Kane Boal
!&',### - &),###
27
Twelve Irish Artists
Produced by !e Victor Waddington Galleries 1940, Limited to 125 copies, of
which this is No. 36
Provenance: From the personal collection of the artist Frank McKelvey, and
thence by descent to the current owner
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