ADAM'S IMPORTANT IRISH ART 27 MAY 2026

52 22 LOUIS LE BROCQUY (1916-2012) Cuchulainn IX (1991) Aubusson Tapestry by Atelier René Duché, 182 x 182cm (71½ x 71½”) Edition 1/9 Signed, numbered and dated 1991 on label verso € 30,000 - 50,000 In 1969 Louis le Brocquy came up with a brilliant response to the challenge of illustrating Thomas Kinsella’s new translation of the mythical Irish epic The Táin for Liam Miller’s Dolmen Press. He made brush drawings using gestural, calligraphic marks, focusing on individuals, including the superhuman Cúchulainn, and the mass of warriors and others involved. The images were both timeless and contemporary, and he explored the technique further at the time, in a series of litho- graphs and, audaciously, an epic, black-and-white tapestry for the RTE studios. Scott Tallon Walker also commissioned a monumental tapestry for PJ Carroll’s & Co’s cigarette factory in Dundalk, Co Louth. This time the artist had the luxury of using a colour palette, and he devised a new pictorial scheme. Rather than the jagged gestural marks, he conceived an array of heads, each abstracted to an irregular oval form, “features uncertain” as he put it, each slightly different to represent the individ- uals member of the raiding party led by Cúchulainn. The play of colour too conveyed the idea of numerous distinct individuals united in purpose. The result was spectacular, a shimmering, informal grid, visualising the emergence of order in a mass of individuals, which he at one point likened to a honeycomb, or a mosaic. The Carrolls commission led on to further series of richly chromatic Cúchulainn tapestries. Following an initial invitation from Edinburgh Weavers in the late 1940s, le Brocquy took to tapestry with enthusiasm, finding in it a new means of aesthetic exploration, not least a way of expressing his love of colour, rather than a “copy-a-painting” technique. He looked to Jean Lurçat, who had revived an early tapestry method involving full-scale linear cartoons with precisely defined colour keys: “a return to medieval ways”, as Brocquy put it. This meant that the artist’s input was at all stag- es accurate and definitive. He developed a strong relationship with the Aubusson tapestry makers at Atelier René Duché. There, the materials, experience and tradition ensured that the work was always made to an exemplary standard. Aidan Dunne, April 2026