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

26 14 CAMILLE SOUTER HRHA (B.1929) The Slaughtered Cow Ten Minutes Dead Oil on paper, 76 x 58.5cm (30 x 23“) Signed, inscribed and dated 1973 Provenance: With Taylor Galleries, Dublin, label verso; Collection Basil Goulding. Exhibited: ROSC , Cork, 1980; ‘ Six Artists from Ireland ’, European touring exhibition, colour illustra- tion in catalogue; University of Limerick, ‘Familiar Faces ’, 2008, colour illustration in catalogue; Drogheda and Castlebar ‘Camille Souter/Nano Reid Retrospective ’, 1999, full page colour illustra- tion. This image used as a Christmas card by Irish Malt Exports Ltd. € 15,000 - 25,000 This work was the last and largest of a series of around 22 paintings inspired by a visit to Les Halles in Paris in the early 1970s. At the time, some of Paris’s best known abattoirs operated in the area, though they were moved out of it in 1971. Souter was particularly struck by the beauty and colour of the hanging meat. She had been interested in biology since childhood and had painted a series of works based on dead basking sharks in Achill during the 1960s so it is per- haps not surprising she would be drawn to the subject. Souter’s take on meat is markedly different to that of many of the other artists that have ad- dressed the subject. Unlike Rembrandt’s Slaughtered Ox , or Chaim Soutine’s paintings of meat, for example, there are no obvious allusions to religion. Most of the works in the Meat series are relatively small. They are also awash with blood. The paint is generally applied thinly, emphasis- ing the fluid properties of the blood present rather than the tactility of the flesh. The black paint of the cows back in this work does however have real weight. The title, tells us that the cow has only recently been slaughtered but signs of life can take time to dissipate. The flesh and blood may still be warm. Its right eye still seems to be open. We can only wonder if it realised or realis- es what has happened to it. Garrett Cormican, August 2019