Adam's IMPORTANT IRISH ART 8th December 2021

60 40 PAUL HENRY RHA (1877-1958) Bogland, Connemara (1930-32) Oil on canvas, 30 x 35cm (11¾ x 13¾’’) Signed Provenance: With the Dawson Gallery, Dublin 1969; Sale, these rooms 30/5/2007, lot 50; Private Collection. Exhibited: Dublin, Trinity College, Paul Henry Retrospective , October/November 1973; Bel- fast, Ulster Museum, November 1973/January 1974, Cat. no. 19; Dublin, The Hugh Lane Mu- nicipal Gallery of Modern Art, ‘ The Paintings of Paul and Grace Henry ’ November/December 1991, Cat. no. 59 Literature: ‘ The Paintings of Paul and Grace Henry ’, The Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Mod- ern Art, November/December 1991 Illustrated in colour, front cover and page 39. S.B.Kennedy, ‘ Paul Henry, Paintings, Drawings, Illustrations ’ Yale University Press, 2007, Cat. no. 814 € 100,000 - 150,000 Painted in the early 1930s after Henry’s marriage to Grace had ended and he had returned to a more stable time in his life with his new partner, Mabel Young, he continued to paint representations of the Irish landscape which were based on his experience of living and working on Achill Island during the second decade of the twentieth century. While much of the Achill period work is imbued with figures, almost exclusively at work – digging potatoes, hauling turf, driving donkeys laden with seaweed or fishing, his later work is devoid of such references. The present work Bogland, Connemara is pure landscape with a low horizon line and magnificent cumulus clouds with subtle pink and off-white tints but this is off-set by the turf stacks, set perilously close to the lakeside. The same turf stacks remind the viewer that the human presence is never too far away and that even a remote Connemara bogland bears the impact of man’s effort to sustain himself. “A fine example of Henry’s work from this late period of his career, the simplicity of the two part division of the picture plane and the simple massing of the compositional elements - turf stacks, bogland and water - imbuing the image with vigour. The sense of stillness and timeless- ness, the characteristic moods of this composi- tion, are typical of much of the artist’s work.” Dr. Brian Kennedy, 2007: