38
19
Paul Henry RHA RUA (1876-1958)
Cottages by Water (1934/39)
Oil on board, 35.5 x 40.5cm (14 x 16”)
Signed
Provenance: Sotheby’s, London, ‘The Irish Sale’, 21 May 1999, lot 351, where purchased and now being
sold by the Executors on behalf of the purchaser’s estate
Literature: S. B. Kennedy,
Paul Henry: with a Catalogue of the Paintings, Drawings, Illustrations
, New
Haven and London, Yale University Press, 2007, p. 278, catalogue number 902.
This painting may be of a scene near Glenbeigh, County Kerry, where Paul Henry holidayed in 1933
and 1934. After the domestic turmoil of the 1920s, which resulted in his separation from his first
wife, Grace, in the 1930s his palette lightened as did his mood.These qualities can be seen clearly in
Cottages by Water
with its fluid use of paint, warm greens and a general feeling of contentment. The
picture is dated c. 1934-9 on stylistic grounds. For further information on Henry’s Kerry paintings,
see S. B. Kennedy,
Paul Henry’s Iveragh Paintings
, in John Crowley & John Sheehan (eds.),
The Iveragh
Peninsula: A Cultural Atlas of the Ring of Kerry
, Cork University Press, 2009, pp. 441-4
Dr. S.B. Kennedy
€35,000 - 55,000
