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Norah McGuinness HRHA (1901-1980)
Winter in the West
Oil on board, 50 x 65cm (20 x 25½”)
Signed
Exhibited: The Royal Hibernian Academy
Annual Exhibition
1961, Cat. No. 115, where purchased;
Twelve Irish Painters
Exhibition, New York 1963; and
Norah McGuinness Retrospective
Exhibition, Trinity College Dublin, Oct/Nov 1968,
Cat. No. 69
Winter in the West
is a skilfully composed painting of large black and white seabirds feeding on
marshy sandbanks. Behind, the tall rectangular shapes of buildings suggest the outskirts of a town.
The composition is framed by lofty swaying grasses. Their large scale emphasises the unusual
perspective of the painting, contrasting as it does with the comparatively tiny forms of the birds
and houses in the distance. This is a bird spotter’s viewpoint. Dark grey skies contrast with the
symphony of browns and greens that dominate the rest of the composition.The mud-flat is made of
interconnecting blocks of differing tones which is ultimately indebted to McGuinness’s application
of a Cubist aesthetic.The geometry of its structure, and that of the houses behind, is at variance with
the loose handling of the paint elsewhere in the work, especially the plants in the foreground.This
divergence of brushstrokes enriches the overall mood and range of the painting.The childlike forms
of the birds, the focus of the work, add a note of exoticism to the scene.
The painting was included in the Arts Council’s exhibition,
Twelve Irish Painters
that was shown
in New York in 1963. McGuinness’s work was greatly admired for its modern qualities in the post-
war period. Anne Crookshank summarised its ability to challenge conventional ideas of the Irish
landscape and especially, as in this painting, the West. According to Crookshank, she
‘creates a
landscape art which is far more enduring, alive and Irish than all the cottages and turf stacks which still
sadly occupy so much gallery space in Dublin’.
[1]
Dr. Róisín Kennedy, March 2014
[1]
Anne Crookshank, Norah McGuinness Retrospective Exhibition, Trinity College Dublin, 1968.
€10,000 - 15,000
