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35 SEAN KEATING PRHA (1889-1977)Waiting for the Tide
Oil on board, 77 x 91cm (30¼ x 35¾”)
Signed
Provenance: Property of a deceased estate well known collectors of Irish Art.
Exhibited: ‘Some Paintings by Modern Irish Artists’, Crawford School of Art, 1960.
Seán Keating undertook a series of paintings of the Aran Islands in the early 1940s, all of which were inspired by direct observation and composed using photographs
and cine camera film as an aid memoir. While it can be difficult to reinstate the correct titles to the artist’s paintings, it is known that during that time he completed two oil
paintings, both on the theme of the ebb and flow of the tide, but he did not exhibit an oil painting entitled
Waiting for the Tide
. He did show a drawing with that title with
Victor Waddington in 1935. Part of a private collection that contained further examples of Keating’s oil paintings, a process of elimination through various exhibition and
diary records suggests that the original title of this oil painting may have been
Traehnoinin Beag Deaneach (late afternoon), Thios ag a gCeibh (down at the quay)
. As often
happened, somewhere along the way the painting gained a new title by which has been known since 1960.
Waiting for the Tide
features a typical Aran Island scene; fishermen on a harbour, others in the turf boats. They could be waiting for the rising tide to empty the rest of
the turf onto the quay. Fuel was sourced on the mainland and, in this instance, the turf boats are moored in the only deep water harbour on the islands - Kilronan on Inis
Mór. Otherwise, the turf boat anchored offshore of the smaller islands and the fuel was brought to land in traditional currachs. Known for his paintings of the Aran Island
people and their lifestyle, Keating was also a keen and observant painter of weather conditions and water, seen in the warmth of the late afternoon stratus clouds, and the
myriad of colour in the tranquil sea. Indeed, when Waiting for the Tide was shown in an exhibition entitled ‘Some Paintings by Modern Irish Artists’ at the Crawford School
of Art in 1960, the catalogue note mentioned the artist’s constant preoccupation with the sea, and with the lives of fishermen. Organised by Professor Denis Gwynn, the
exhibition comprised paintings on loan from private collections, the purpose of which was to ‘encourage private and other patrons to buy paintings by modern Irish artists,
and also to show what a large number of Irish artists have made a really important contribution to contemporary art.’ Encouraged by Sir Hugh Lane’s endeavours to form
a municipal collection of art in Dublin for the benefit of the people of Ireland, Gwynn hoped that his exhibition of the work of ‘famous’ Irish artists would be a ‘real service
to art students and art lovers, in Cork and in other parts of Ireland, who have few opportunities of seeing their work.’ The exhibition, which included a second painting by
Keating, and examples by John B. and Jack Yeats, Sir William Orpen, Sir John Lavery, Paul Henry, and Sarah Purser among others, was considered ‘an achievement’ that had
‘done a lot of good’ for artists and the public alike.
The context within which Keating painted
Waiting for the Tide
and other such works in his Aran series of the early 1940s deserves mention. Although Ireland was neutral
during the Second World War, Keating listened, horrified, to the news broadcasts every day, and was constantly reminded of the First World War, the Easter Rising, and
indeed, the Irish War of Independence and the Civil War. Shocked by the fierce air raids by both sides, the drownings, the sinkings, and the propaganda, he wrote in his
personal notes at the time that ‘all the naked cruelty and horribleness of everything yawns wide like the mouth of a savage beast.’ Amid all that turmoil, Keating tuned to
classical music on the ‘wireless’ and worked on paintings of the Aran Islands, a small outcrop in the Atlantic Ocean where he found his artistic identity, peace, and serenity,
as early as 1913. Waiting for the Tide is a deceptively idyllic image, replete with the reality of the difficulties of island life. Yet, in a world still mad, like the mouth of a savage
beast, there remains peace and serenity among the men, amid the afternoon sun, and in the myriad of colour in the tranquil sea.
Dr Éimear O’Connor HRHA September 2016
Author of
Seán Keating: Art, Politics and Building the Irish Nation
(Kildare: Irish Academic Press, 2013).
The author would like to acknowledge and thank Niall MacFionnlaoich for his translation of Keating’s Gaelic titles.
€ 50,000 - 70,000