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Grace Henry HRHA (1868-1953)
Daffodils
Oil on canvas, 30.5 x 25cm (12 x 9.8”)
As the first wife of Paul Henry, Emily Grace Mitchell has long been in the shadow of her more
famous spouse. Born in Aberdeen in 1868, her grandmother was cousin to the poet Lord Byron.
After studying in Brussels she worked with André L’hôte in Paris where she met Paul Henry
whom she married in 1903. During the early years of her marriage and more especially those
years the couple spent on Achill, Grace’s work came under the influence of Paul. From the mid-
1920s, when she again spent time in Paris, she came into her own style.The painting considered
by many to be her finest,
The Girl in White
, was painted during this period. This hauntingly
evocative work which remembers Whistler, kindly loaned by the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery
of Modern Art, will be the highlight of the exhibition. Strongly coloured and vigorously painted,
White Roses
, another highlight of the exhibition, was executed in 1940, a year after The Studio
magazine has raised her work to poetic comparisons : ‘As surely as Verlaine wanted his poetry
to be all music, she wants her painting to be all poetry…Her drawing is sensitive, her colour
invariably harmonious.’ Two years later in the Father Mathew Record Máirín Allen wrote that
in her paintings ‘there is reflected the character, the mood of the artist herself; vivacity; at times
a youthful, irresponsible gaiety; more often the tender reminiscence of a mood evoked by flowers
in a bowl, or sails at Chioggia, or shadowy trees on the banks of the Seine . . .’ With this long
overdue exhibition Grace Henry comes out of the shadows to step centre-stage and accept her
deserved plaudits.
€1,500 - 2,500