158
112 John Luke RUA (1906-1975)
Shaw’s Bridge Belfast
Oil and tempera on linen laid on board, 31.8 x 44.5cm (12½ x 17½”)
Signed and dated (19)‘39, signed again and inscribed “Shaw’s Bridge, Belfast” verso
Provenance.The Bell Family by descent and sold by them at Christies May 1999 Lot 218 where purchased by current owner.
Exhibited:
United Artists Exhibition
, Royal Academy London, 1940, Cat. No. 352;
Ulster Artists Exhibition:The Work of John Luke
, Belfast Museum and Art Gallery, 4-28 September 1946, Cat. No. 30;
Exhibition of Paintings by John Luke
, CEMA Gallery, Belfast, November 1948, Cat. No. 19;
John Luke Exhibition
, Queen’s University Common Room, Belfast, 1960, Cat. No. 15;
John Luke (1906-1975),
Ulster Museum, Belfast, 27 January - 4 March 1978, Cat. No. 39;
Ulster Artists Exhibition The Ava Gallery
April 2010 Cat. No. 20;
Ireland her People and Landscape Exhibition
The Ava Gallery June - September 2012 Cat. No. 28; and
Northern Rhythm: The Art of John Luke (1906-1975)
, Ulster Museum, Belfast, 2 November 2012 - 28 April 2013,
Cat. No 23
Literature: T
he Landscapes of John Luke
by John Hewitt,The Studio, August 1949 (Illustrated);
John Luke (1906 - 1978)
By John Hewitt Belfast 1978 p38. Front cover illustration;
Ulster Artists
2010, Ava Gallery, illustrated p.21;
Ireland: Her People and Landscape
2012.by Dr. Rosin Kennedy, p.4, illustrated p.5 and again p.35
Northern Rhythm: The Art of John Luke
2012 by Joseph Mc Brinn illustrated p.39
John Luke was born in north Belfast and his first job was working in Belfast’s thriving shipbuilding industry. He was a student
at the Belfast School of Art but left in 1927 to enrol at the Slade School in London, where he studied under Henry Tonks and
shared a studio with his fellow countryman F.E. McWilliam. He returned to Belfast in 1931.
Shaw’s Bridge
is probably Luke’s
last major work before the start of the Second World War and a significant point in the artist’s development.This work recalls
the earlier composition
The Bridge
from 1936 with its more simplified form and colours.
Luke painted at least two versions of the bridge, the earliest in 1936, and he made at least one linocut print (c.1933), an example
of which was sold in these rooms in 2008.
Shaw’s Bridge
represents a synthesis in the artist’s style, culminating in the more
recognisable decorative and rhythmical compositions, and it is the work in which he settled on the technique of applying oil
glazes over a tempera base. Luke continued to use this unusual technique for the remainder of his meticulously planned and
executed easel paintings.
Shaw’s Bridge
is probably the last painting that Luke completed with an identifiable topographical subject matter. After 1940 he
turned increasingly to mural painting and public commissions.
€80,000 - 120,000
