Adam's IMPORTANT IRISH ART 30TH MARCH 2022

120 102 HARRY KERNOFF RHA (1900-1974) Tralee Mountains from Killarney Oil on board, 64 x 94cm (25 x 37”) Signed; also inscribed with title, artist’s name and address in the artist’s hand, verso Exhibited: Dublin, Royal Hibernian Academy, Annual Exhibition 1944, Catalogue No. 76. € 10,000 - 15,000 Born in London to Russian Jewish and Spanish parents, Harry Kernoff moved to Dublin at the age of fourteen and made it his home for life. Kernoff spent his days as an apprentice in his father’s fur- niture business, taking night classes at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art under Sean Keating, and becoming the first night student to win the Taylor Art Scholarship in 1923. He first exhibited at the Royal Hibernian Academy just three years later, and continued to do so until the year of his death, becoming a full member of the academy in 1935. In that same year he held the first of three solo shows at the Victor Waddington Galleries (the others being in 1937 and 1940). International attention came in 1939 when he represented Ireland at the New York World’s Fair. The present work from 1944, Tralee Mountains from Killarney , is one of many paintings depicting scenes in Kerry and in particular around Killarney. This extensive view across Lough Leane towards the Slieve Mish mountains with its seventeen peaks conveys a calm, benign nature, the stylised cumulus clouds more akin to John Luke’s than Paul Henry’s. There is a strong structured design in Kernoff ’s composition with the vast expanse of the lake providing an aquamarine backdrop to the exotic red-flowering trees which suggests an Orientalist influence. The tiny fishing boat with its two fishers reaffirms the enormity of the Kerry landscape and the relative insignificance of man. The composition is topped by an exquisite band of pale blue-hewed mountains, the far shore, with its light green fields and darker afforestation, enjoys a canopy of fluffy clouds running in symmetrical bands and conveys a ‘pet Kerry day’.