Adam's The Antoinette and Patrick J.Murphy Collection 23rd October 2019

158 145 JAMES MCKENNA (1933-2000) Male Figure Carved wood, 122cm (48“) high € 3,000 - 5,000 James McKenna was born in Dublin in 1933 and spent his formative years in a farming community in Kilcoole, Co. Wicklow. In 1950 McKenna began his studies at NCAD, then a particularly conservative institution, resistant to currents of change rippling through European art in the post-war period. Undoubtedly, his encounters with a reactionary old guard were one of the factors that motivated the young McKenna to co-found the Independent Artists Group in 1960. This group was conceived to create a much needed opportunity for younger, emerging artists with opportunities to present their work via group exhibitions. McKenna’s skill was noted early in his career and he received a Macaulay Scholarship to Italy, enabling him to spend several months in Florence for eight months, an experience that would inform his approach to sculpture considerably. Throughout the 1960s McKenna showed work in group exhibitions with peers such as Brian Bourke, Michael Kane and John Behan. The latter shared a house with McKenna in Dublin and recalls how McKenna would create monumental works in the street since no studio could accommodate the vast scale of his sculptures. McKenna can be placed in the tradition of 19th century figurative sculpture. However, it would be inaccurate to suggest that the influences of Modernism did not influence this artist. Although he eschewed abstraction and insisted upon using manual techniques without the assistance of power tools, the austerity of his work is distinctly modern. One might compare him to the Italian sculptor Marino Marini (1901- 1980) who had a similar penchant for depicting nudes and equestrian subjects in a manner that evokes archaic Etruscan and Northern European sculpture. While the titles of his works frequently refer to Irish mythological stories his sculptures pos- sess a universal quality and McKenna interpreted classical themes in light of modern concerns and techniques. In addition to working as a visual artist McKenna was also a poet and playwright and established the Rising Ground Drama Group in 1969. The various facets of McKenna’s work were informed by his efforts to reform and improve the world in which he lived. As art critic Aidan Dunne wrote in McKenna’s obituary, “He believed art should be accessible, and function as a progressive, egalitarian force in society”. The impressive selection of sculptures included in this sale exemplifies McKenna’s facility for working in a broad range of materials. Both Crouching Woman in wood and Dúil (Desire) in marble demonstrate McKenna’s tenden- cy to leave traces of his laborious processes, and make them visually evident. McKenna exhibited widely and his work was included in several international sculpture shows in the 1980s and ‘90s. A major retrospective of his work took place at IMMA in 2008 accompanied by an extensive catalogue. He is perhaps best known for several large scale public sculptures such as Resurgence at the University of Limerick; Female Figure and Tree 1979, at the Central Bank in Sandyford, Co. Dublin the Gerard Manley Hopkins monument in Monasterevin, Co. Kildare and Oisín caught in a Time Warp at the Kildare County Council offices. Pádraic E. Moore