Adam's IMPORTANT IRISH ART 9th December 2020

30 24 NORAH MCGUINNESS HRHA (1901-1980) Flight over Mulroy Oil on canvas, 51 x 76cm (20 x 30’’) Signed Norah McGuinness’s paintings of the coastline of Ireland were highly regarded in her life- time and have since come to be recognised as amongst her most distinctive contribution to modern Irish landscape painting. Many depict the murky sandbanks of Dublin, where she lived. But she also had a studio at Rathmullan on the banks of Lough Swilly close to Co. Der- ry where she was from originally. While staying here she painted many scenes of Mulroy Bay in North Donegal, the earliest dating from the 1940s. Mulroy links Fanad Head and Rosguill Peninsula and is now spanned by a bridge but was connected by ferry for many years. Literally taking a bird’s eye view the painting lays out the contours of the land and sea as seen from above. The shape of the coastline is simplified and the rocks, hills and shrubbery transformed into decorative elements within the flat patterning of the terrain. Soaring across this stylised landscape is a gull, its body extended outwards revealing its plumage and making it appear exotic. More detailed and focused than the ground beneath it, the juxta- position of the bird and the land emphasise the two separate planes that each occupy. In this way McGuinness draws on her extensive understanding of design and her knowledge of cubism. The final painting was made in the studio, not en plein air, although the artist probably used drawings and sketches made at the scene as her initial inspiration. In the final painting the vagaries of the landscape are subsumed into a more controlled work of art. Subtle geomet- ric patterning and blends of greens, greys and orange transform the natural world into a self-consciously modern painting. As in McGuinness’s other Irish landscapes, she manages to make the familiar unfamiliar and present the Irish coastline as exotic and strangely con- temporary. Dr. Roisin Kennedy € 20,000 - 30,000