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Maurice MacGonigal PRHA (1900-1979)
Punchestown Races, 1935
Oil on board, 26 x 35cm (10¼ x 13¾”)
Signed
This work dating from 1935 shows the crowd scene at Punchestown and has many of the figurative el-
ements which the artist was to use in so many of his works more than 30 years later depicting races and
horse fairs, notably after he acquired an interest in one of the progeny of Green Banner in order to pacify
his younger son who was interested in such things.The artist went on to paint some major equine works
from the late 1950s to the end of his life and many of these are in major public and important private
collections in Ireland and abroad.
In this composition the artist shows the drama of the crowd and main stand packed with onlookers, it
has the sense compositionally of the immanence of the actual race or races out of view. The foreground
with its viridian colour is dealt with by having the racegoer with his binoculars walking away from the
viewer towards the swelling crowd, bringing the viewer’s eye with him and, being slightly off centre creates
a sense of dynamic asymmetry, and the horizon line of the crowd has the tic tac man signalling the odds
to another bookmakers stand, so one realises that the betting is about to close on that particular race. For
various optical reasons some greens like viridian create a sense of movement and in this work the painter
uses a scumbled effect to achieve a sense of somewhat urgent motion from foreground to background.The
work is in its original Waddington frame and inscribed on the back in autograph form and was a wedding
present that year to a longstanding friend.
Ciarán MacGonigal
€3,000 - 5,000
