Adam's Important Irish Art 5th December 2018

84 76 GEORGE RUSSELL ‘AE’ (1867-1935) Figures in the Dunes Oil on canvas, 53 x 80cm (20¾ x 31½’’) Signed ‘AE’ € 3,000 - 5,000 George Russell grew up in Lurgan, Co. Amargh but moved to Dublin at the age of 11. He is known not only for his paintings but as a writer, poet, critic, theosophist and economist, and by his pseudonym ‘AE’ (a derivative of the word Aeon).  He began night time painting classes at the Metropolitan School of Art just two years after moving to Dublin, and went on to receive ac- ademic training at the RHA. AE supported Hugh Lane’s campaign for the gallery of modern art and was active in the Irish Literary Revival. Iberian reviewed George Russell’s first exhibition in 1904 in The Irish Homestead – ‘It is, perhaps, in his treatment of atmospheres that Mr Russells most charming and satisfying effects are produced, and the sense of brooding tranquillity and a living peace. [His] use, too, of a solitary figure, or of a few figures wrapped about with silence and the spaces of the air and the hills, is a revelation of the nearness of natural men to the heart of nature itself. (The Irish Homestead, Vol. X, No.35, 27 August 1904). This sense of the magical power of na- ture and its spiritual and enigmatic character is what defines the best specimens of George Russell’s work. Although he was sometimes crit- icised for his prolific output, there are many fine examples among his industrious oeuvre. His paintings can be found in the collection of the Ulster Museum, National Gallery of Ireland, Hugh Lane, OPW, Trinity College Dublin and the Crawford Gallery.