ADAM'S - IMPORTANT IRISH ART, WEDNESDAY 29TH MARCH 2017 (Click Lot title for more images and to Place Bid)

Oil on canvas, 31.5 x 43cm (12½ x 17’’)

Signed

Provenance: Hector Boyd Hanna (1886-1982), Belfast; thence by family descent.

Literature: Similar to a picture of the same title reproduced in S. B. Kennedy, Paul Henry: with a catalogue of the

Paintings, Drawings, Illustrations, Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 2007, catalogue number

380, reproduced in colour, p. 173.

Hector Hanna attended the Royal Belfast Academical Institution (Inst.) from 1900 to 1905. Paul Henry also attended

Inst. for two years, from September 1891. After graduating from Oxford in 1909 H.B.Hanna became assistant to Pro-

fessor Robert Henry, Paul’s brother, in the Department of Latin at Queen’s University in Belfast. He returned to Inst. as

a master in 1916 and was appointed Headmaster of the Classical Department in 1930. The Hanna family believe that

their grandfather, Hector Hanna got to know Paul Henry through Paul’s brother Robert and that having lent the young

artist some money was repaid by the receipt of this painting amongst others which would have been typical of Henry.

Many of Paul Henry’s best characteristics are on show in this painting; Whistlerian and monochromatic in execution,

he creates a strong atmospheric effect with virtually no detailing and an even film of paint. The early morning light and

complete absence of human references underpin the composition with the cloud and distant cliffs providing a singular

focal point and the smooth texture of the surface punctuated only by the dappled reflection of the clouds in the water.

The sense of stillness, of the island almost hovering on the distant horizon, is typical of Henry’s work at this early date.

Clare Island from Achill is numbered 1316 in S. B. Kennedy’s ongoing catalogue of Paul Henry’s oeuvre.

We would like to thank Dr S.B. Kennedy for his help in cataloguing this lot.

€ 40,000 - 60,000