Adams Important Irish Art 23rd March 2016 : You can Download a PDF Version from the Bottom Menu Down Arrow Icon

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Oil on canvas, 51 x 61cm (20¼ x 24”)
Signed
€ 6,000 - 10,000
Grace Henry (nee Mitchell) was born in comfortable surroundings to a Church of Scotland Minister, the second youngest of ten children. She lived and studied in
London, Brussels and Paris where she met and married Paul Henry in 1903.They returned to England and lived in Surrey for several years, both deeply influenced
by the avant garde Post Impressionist mood of the time. As a couple they spent almost a decade from 1912 living on Achill Island, a career defining period for
both of them, but particularly for her husband. The seeds of separation were sown in these years, as Grace began to travel frequently to Dublin and London and
to exhibit separately in Belfast in the 1920s.They founded the Dublin Painters Society with 6 other artists in 1920 but by the mid 1920s had separated from each
other, although they never divorced.
In the 1930s she spent more of her time abroad but continued to show her work in Irish art exhibitions. During the Second World War she returned to the west of
Ireland, and exhibited regularly at galleries in Dublin and at the Royal Hibernian Academy. Her bold use of paint and fluid brushstrokes simplified the composition
of her paintings to its essential elements, leaving at their core the humanity and humble spirit of the figures within them, so often inspired by the noble islanders
she came across on Achill.
Her works are included in major collections such as the National Gallery of Ireland, Hugh Lane Gallery, Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin, Ulster
Museum and Crawford Gallery.