Adams Important Irish Art 3rd December 2014 : You can Download a PDF Version from the Bottom Menu Down Arrow Icon

May Guinness RHA (1863 - 1955)

Lady by Window c.1930

Oil on panel, 29.5 x 25cm (11¾ x 9¾”)

another work verso depicting an elderly woman wearing a headscarf

Moderns Exhibition IMMA Oct 2010 / Feb 2011 Cat. No.35; “Irish Women Artists 1870 - 1970”

Summer loan show Adams Dublin July 2014 andThe Ava Gallery Clandeboye August 2014 Cat. No. 75

Moderns IMMA 2011 illustrated p.65; “Irish Women Artists 1870 - 1970” Full page illustration

p.91

This urbane painting of a woman seated at a balcony reveals May Guinness’ authoritative command of mod-

ern French painting, especially the language of Fauvism. She was very influenced by Kees Van Dongen, and

later studied with the cubist Andre Lhote, 1922-25. She began making extensive trips to France in 1910

when she was in her mid forties. By 1920, having been awarded the Croix de Guerre, for her work as a French

army nurse during World War One, Guinness was developing a distinctive style of painting. A review of an

exhibition of her work in London that year described her as painting, ‘not to represent, but to decorate’.

Lady by Window

is evidence of this need to ‘decorate’. Decoration and patterning permeate its construction. It

is not a conventional portrait but a study of form and colour.The subject is very close to the themes associated

with the work of Henri Matisse, an artist whom Guinness greatly admired.The figure is situated in an interim

space between the interior of a room, a shaded balcony and the open sun-filled space of the street beyond.The

strong colour of the red curtain permeates the surrounding space. It is reflected on the contours of the figure’s

arms and is complimented by the red upholstery of the chair on which she sits and by a shawl that covers her

knees.The elaborate construction of the space beyond the curtain - the blue sky and the intense white of the

building convey the feeling of strong sunshine while the green of the open window pane indicates interior

shade. These different tones are brought together in the rectangular patterns of interlocking colours on the

right hand side of the painting which frame the sitter.

The figure, who sits in a self-conscious pose, has an open book beside her but the position of her arms indi-

cates the artificiality of the theme. She is an extension of the patterning found elsewhere in the painting. Her

strong profile, her artful coiffeur and above all the intricate design of her pale blue dress subsume her in to a

world of decoration and art. Guinness was a consummate embroiderer, even teaching embroidery in Dublin

and exhibiting examples of her needlework in the city in 1921. Her understanding of abstract design, which

she has gleaned from French expressionism and cubism, and from the more immediate source of needlework,

recurs across the painting. Curvilinear forms subtly undermine the geometry of other elements in the com-

position.The lace trim of the curtain, the sinuous shape of the iron railing, the curvaceous shape of the glass

vase and above all the elaborate detail of the woman’s dress highlight a vision of the world in which patterning

and configuration of form and colour holds sway. Guinness was a remarkable and underestimated exponent

of modern art who through work like this encouraged other artists to engage with its ideas and challenges.

Dr. Roisin Kennedy

Oct 2014

€4,000 - 6,000