ADAM'S IMPORTANT IRISH ART 24th September 2025

108 83 JOHN DOHERTY (B.1949) The Vet’s Surgery, Schull, Co. Cork (2014/5) Oil on canvas, 76 x 92cm (30 x 35¾”) Signed; inscribed with title and dated 2014/15 verso Provenance: With Catherine Hammond Gallery, Skibbereen, Co Cork, where purchased by the present owner. Exhibited: Skibbereen, Co Cork, Catherine Hammond Gallery, Contemporary Realism , Group Show, with Catherine Bar- ron, John Doherty, Mollie Douthit, Martin Gale and Maeve McCarthy, July/Aug. 2016. € 15,000 - 25,000 In The Vets Surgery, Schull, Co. Cork , John Doherty brings his characteristic precision and quiet intensity to the unassuming façade of a rural Irish streetscape. Executed in 2014/5, the painting exemplifies Doherty’s abiding fasci- nation with the overlooked vernacular architecture of small towns and villages — façades that, through his lens, become icons of memory and place. Doherty trained initially as an architect, and his meticulous painterly style reflects this background: a near-photo- graphic clarity is combined with an almost meditative still- ness. Here, the utilitarian frontage of a veterinary surgery in West Cork is elevated beyond the documentary into the contemplative. The flat plane of the building, with its royal blue plaster walls, practical windows and simple signage, is rendered with an exactitude that recalls American Preci- sionist painting while remaining distinctly rooted in an Irish idiom. What results is a work that hovers between realism and abstraction. The absence of figures lends an air of time- lessness, the building itself standing as both subject and symbol — an emblem of community life, yet also an object pared back to form, colour and line. Doherty has long sought to “still the ordinary,” isolating structures that risk erasure under the pressure of modernisation, and in so doing reveals the quiet dignity of Ireland’s architectural heritage. Paintings such as The Vets Surgery, Schull, Co. Cork have become touchstones within Doherty’s oeuvre, capturing the poetry of the everyday and resonating with collectors attuned to the intimate relationship between memory, place and identity.