173
Important Irish Art
,
wednesday 1st October 2014 at 6pm
180 Margaret Clarke RHA (1888-1961)
Coltsfoot, Greystones
Oil on panel, 46 x 56cm (18 x 22”)
Signed
Exhibited: David Clarke Retrospective,The Frederick Gallery, Dublin, Cat. No. 62 (label verso)
Margaret Clarke was born and educated in Newry. In 1906 she was awarded a scholarship to the DMSA, where she became one of
Orpen’s star pupils, and won many prizes. Her fellow students included Beatrice Glenavy, James Sleator, Kathleen Fox, Leo Whelan,
Patrick Tuohy and Harry Clarke, whom she married in 1915. Margaret excelled at portrait painting. Her dispassionate, searching eye
enabled her to reveal the deep nature, the “true self ” of the sitter, even when painting her own family. She was commissioned to paint
many notable figures of the times, including Eamon De Valera, Dr. John Charles McQuaid and Dermod O’Brien (President of the
RHA). Strong-minded and independent, she particularly enjoyed the artistic and intellectual freedom of genre painting such as “The
Ghost Sonate” (Ulster Museum)’ based on a play by Strindberg, or “Bathtime at the Creche” (National Gallery). Her outstanding ability
as a draughtswoman can be appreciated in all her work. Like so many women artists she had to combine devotion to her career with the
care of her family, and after Harry’s death, with much of the responsibility for the studios on a greatly reduced income. Genre paintings
became a luxury rarely affordable. In later life she loved to paint delightful, simple vases of flowers or scenes from the Wicklow hills. She
died in Dublin in 1961.
Fiana Griffin
€800 - 1,200
