Adam's Important Irish Art September 26th 2018

90 78 SIR JOHN LAVERY RA RSA RHA (1856-1941) Mrs. J.F. McGuire - a Half Length Portrait Wearing a Black Dress, Lace Shawl and Pearls Oil on canvas, 76.2 x 63.5cm (30 x 25’’) Signed Provenance: The McGuire Family, U.S.A.; The Closson Galleries, Cincinnati, Ohio. Exhibited: New York, Duveen Galleries, ‘American Portraits, Interiors and Landscapes by Sir John Lavery’, November 29th - December 11th 1926, Catalogue No.21. A copy of the Duveen catalogue is available to the purchaser, together with two typed letters, dated March and December 1926, from John Francis McGuire to Mrs. Lloyd H. Fales (Harriette), in which refer- ence is made to Sir John Lavery and the portraits done by him of the McGuire women - Mrs. J.F. McGuire and her daughter Miss Julia McGuire. This portrait, although not the first of Lavery’s to be exhibited in America, bore the fruits of that initial visit in 1925 which led to him making connections with wealthy American families such as the McGuires. As the letter, accompanying this lot illustrates, Lavery painted both Mrs J. F McGuire and her daughter Julia during this first trip. The family appeared to mix quite readily within the artistic milieu of the time entertaining Lav- ery on his return to the States in 1926, along with writer Captain Osbert Sitwell, painter Richard Wyndham and French art dealer Viscount A’lendcourt. Lavery is renowned for his society and political portraits. These works in many ways served both the artist and sitter in their outward expression of wealth and status achieved by both in the very act of commis- sioning the paintings. Mrs McGuire, is depicted in half-length, looking out directly at the viewer, she has a strong confident presence that was often found in Lavery’s high society portraits. Though clothed in a fairly modest black dress, placing her against a stark background allows Lavery to pick out the delicate details of her floral patterned silk shawl and the lustrous highlights of her string of pearls. Her position in society was secure, and her formidable gaze, holding the attention of the viewer, leaves us in no doubt. Despite its modest size, Lavery first exhibition in America in November 1925 was a great success. He took up residence at the Ambassador Hotel overlooking Central Park. It was in this suite that he painted many of his commissions, a number of portrait interiors and fifteen portraits of American businessmen and their wives, presumably including this present example of Mrs J F McGuire . These works would go on to make up the basis of the second exhibition in the winter of 1926. There were 28 paintings included in this show, also housed in the Duveen Gallery with a mixture of interior scenes loaned by Mrs Alexander Hamilton Rice and Mr Harold I Pratt. There were two views of Central Park, ‘morning and evening’ and the remainder a collection made up of portraits of wealthy americans, including both the McGuire women’s portraits. A series of commissions in New York and Boston, secured due to his first exhibition, kept Lavery busy throughout in the winter. He and Hazel did not return home for Christmas but instead headed to the sunshine of Palm Springs in Florida. Lavery was keenly aware of the social cachet afforded to him by these visits to America. It was a very different place to Europe in the mid-1920s, where opportunities abound for the person who was astute enough to recognise it. This period is unusual in straddling two defining moments of that decade, the immediate aftermath of the first world war and the lead up to the Wall Street Crash. The art world existed within a very particular social and political environment. Lavery’s strong connections to the U.S, was largely orchestrated by the British art dealer, Joseph Duveen whose gallery housed Lavery’s first show across the Atlantic in 1925. Duveen had made his name in the modern art world by recognizing the opportunity that existed between the wealth, on two accounts, of art in Europe and money in the America. He was a staunch promoter of British art overseas and works that he introduced to the market became the basis for numerous muse- um collections across the country. Duveen had already played the important role in selling to self-made industrialists on the notion that buying art was also buying upper-class status. In the same way that com- missioning artists such as Lavery to paint your portrait was a way of expressing that upper-class status for those who had massive fortunes but lacked the legacy that traditional landowning families had by virtue of their lineage. € 15,000 - 25,000