140
95
Patrick Hennessy RHA (1915-1980)
Never Ending Summer
Oil on canvas, 64 x 76cm (25.25 x 30’’)
Signed
Provenance: Sold in these rooms, Important Irish Art Auction, 31st March 2010,
Lot No. 99 (cover illustration), where purchased by the current vendor
Exhibited: Ritchie Hendriks Gallery, Dublin. Original label verso
In November 1964 at his annual exhibition at the Ritchie Hendriks Gallery, St.
Stephens Green, Dublin, Patrick Hennessy exhibited 23 paintings with a broad
spectrum of subject matter, the content of his travels from the previous year, the
Irish countryside, still lives, rose studies, mementos from Spain, and a number
of paintings of Moroccan objects and countryside, Morocco was becoming a
greater part of Hennessy’s life and he was spending up to six months of the year
there, avoiding the Irish winters for health reasons.The painting
The Never End-
ing Summer
a landscape is probably a view existing only in Hennessy’s mind, a
blue hazy sky, a dry arid vista with a high rocky mountain in the background
dominating the centre of the canvas, a low shallow stretch of water clearly below
normal level with sun bleached stones from the river bed completing the effect
of a long dry period.The inclusion of a spray of brilliant red roses with luxuriant
green foliage that dominate the foreground and contrasts sharply with the land-
scape is a Hennessy trademark and a device he used many times.The landscape
has all the elements of a Hennessy capriccio.
Kevin A. Rutledge
€7,000 - 10,000
