22 / 184
22
15 PAUL HENRY RHA (1877-1958)In the Western Mountains (1910-11)
Oil on board, 33 x 41.5cm (12½ x 15¾”)
Signed
Provenance: Property of deceased estate, well known collectors of works by Paul Henry and other Irish artists.
Paul Henry established himself as an artist and illustrator in London, when he returned there from his student days in
Pairs, and had a thriving career both as a free-lance artist and as an illustrator. He first went to the west of Ireland, to
Achill Island, on the recommendation of his friend Robert Lynd, who, the year before had spent his honeymoon there.
Thus in July or early August of 1910 Henry, and his first wife, Grace, visited Achill and found it everything they had ever
wanted. To begin with, Paul recorded the people of the island and their way of life, but this painting must have been done
shortly after their arrival on Achill. Even at this early date it has all the typical ‘Henry’ motifs - mountains to halt the eye’s
recession; a still sky; a lake or mountain tarn; and a few turf stacks in the foreground-although the handling of the paint
also betrays its early date. The key to the piece lies in its signature, with the dot after the word Henry, a form of signature
that Henry used until around 1911, although he also inserted a dot after the word Henry from time to time. The paint
has been lightly applied, with the exception of some impasto in the middle distance, and the technique of drawing the
paint downwards, as in the lake, is a typical of Henry’s art.
In the Western Mountains
is numbered 1306 in S. B. Kennedy’s
ongoing cataloguing of Henry’s oeuvre.
Dr S.B. Kennedy, September 2016
€ 40,000 - 60,000