ADAM'S IMPORTANT IRISH ART 24th September 2025

60 35 ALOYSIUS O’KELLY RHA (1853-1936) Breton Interior Oil on canvas, 53 x 44cm (20¾ x 17¼”) Signed Provenance: Sotheby Parke-Bernet, New York, 15 Apr. 1970; Arthur James Galleries, Florida, Nov. 2005; Milmo-Penny Fine Art, 2006; Private Collection Dublin Literature: Niamh O’Sullivan, Aloysius O’Kelly: Art, Nation, Empire (Field Day Publications) 2010. € 6,000 - 8,000 Brittany must have seemed like a plumb line to O’Kelly’s past as Celtic revivalists in the late nineteenth century began to document what were considered quaint, ‘primi- tive’ practices before they were extinguished by modern ‘progress.’ Irish visitors to Brittany thrived on the historical, cultural and ethnic similarities, and the inter-connected- ness of religion, land and the concept of nationhood, all conveyed through the vibrant oral tradition of storytelling and music making. From the mid 1870s, O’Kelly returned again and again to paint the people and places of Brittany for almost half a century. His early paintings show the influence of Jean- Léon Gérôme, his tutor at the École des Beaux-Arts, and Léon Joseph Florentin Bonnat who taught him portraiture. His later, more iridescent paintings show the influence of Naturalism and Impressionism. O’Kelly was one of the first Irish artists to discover Brittany and was influential in drawing other Irish artists there. Pont Aven was a small sleepy village. Students from the École arrived in droves for the summer months, so that village itself resembled a great studio with its picturesque streets full of painters at work, with the villagers posing anywhere and everywhere. The long- haired painters went native themselves, wearing old paint-stained corduroy suits, bat- tered wide-brimmed hats, loose flannel shirts, and wooden sabots stuffed with straw. O’Kelly took to it with gusto. O’Kelly boarded at the Pension Gloanec, considered the most bohemian hotel. This auberge, built in 1860 by Jo- seph and Marie Jeanne Gloanec, was at the entrance to the village square. The cost of living, including two meals with cider, was two and a half francs a day. Marie Jeanne was a wonderful cook, here preparing a rabbit stew. She gener- ously extended credit, or accepted paintings in lieu of rent. A number of O’Kelly portraits, such as Fillette de Pont-Aven and Vieille Bretonne de Pont-Aven were acquired in this manner. The patronne wears the distinctive white linen coiffe with wide collar, red skirt, waisted bodice, and striped apron. The hunter is dressed in typical Pont-Aven fashion (mode giz fouen). The men wear woollen jackets, bragoù-bras (large pantalons), black gaiters and felt broad-rimmed hats, some with the distinctive velvet ribbon. This is an early painting demonstrating O’Kelly’s ability to handle multiple figures in complex interior spaces. The ac- ademic draughtsmanship and conventional painting skills are enlivened with the notable individuality of the figures, and the basket of vegetables, showing his ability to paint in a loose and free manner, on the left. O’Kelly rarely dated his paintings but his work can be dated by style and signature. He adopted a cursive style in his early years, as we see here, and used a block signature on his later work. Prof. Niamh O’Sullivan, August 2025