Adam's IMPORTANT IRISH ART 2nd September 2020

www.adams.ie Important Irish Art | 2nd September 2020 95 Le Brocquy’s interest in the human face began with a series of paintings in 1964/65 centred on the heads of ancestral figures from Irish history such as Wolfe Tone, Robert Emmett, Oliver Plunkett. He moved later to the giants of Irish Literature, James Joyce, W. B Yeats and Samuel Beckett, which were a continuation, in many ways of those earlier heads, exploring the links be- tween the historical and contemporary Irish identity central to each of these writers works. Le Brocquy and Beckett had a long and enduring friendship and this works sits amongst numerous representations of him painted between 1979 and 2015. This present work, painted in 1992, three years after Beckett’s own passing, strikes a more poignant note. With his eyes closed, the lips drawn in a thin line and his aged face emerging from an almost non-existent white background, le Brocquy creates an image of a ghostly, spectre-like form. The head paintings, represent an attempt to get a sense of the individual, not as a complete entity but rather as fragments from the bodies, from the people themselves. It is an essence of the figure, captured through, at times, quite minimal touches of paint. As with all the head paintings Beckett is suspended, isolated within the white space of the artist’s sheet of paper. With his eyes closed, mouth drawn, there is an air of silence and repose. The distinctive characteristics of Beckett’s features, par- ticularly his deeply lined face, are wonderfully rendered in this watercolour by le Brocquy in the subtle blue and grey washes of colour. Niamh Corcoran, February 2020