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Fig. 9 . Grace Henry
Fig. 8 . Grace Henry (1868-1953)
Girl in a village in theWest of Ireland
Oil on Canvas, 45.7 x 35.6cm (18 x 14”), Signed
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Grace Henry was born in comfortable surroundings to a Church of Scotland Minister, the second
youngest of ten children. She lived and studied in London, Brussels and Paris where she met and
married Paul Henry in 1903.They returned to England and lived in Surrey for several years, both
deeply influenced by the avant garde Post Impressionist mood of the time.As a couple they spent
almost a decade from 1912 living on Achill Island, a career defining period for both of them, but
particularly for her husband.The seeds of separation were sown in these years, as Grace began
to travel frequently to Dublin and London and to exhibit separately in Belfast in the 1920s.They
founded the Dublin Painters Society with 6 other artists in 1920 but by the mid 1920s had sep-
arated from each other, although they never divorced. In the 1930s she spent more of her time
abroad but continued to show her work in Irish art exhibitions. During the Second World War
she returned to the west of Ireland, and exhibited regularly at galleries in Dublin and at the Royal
Hibernian Academy.
Her bold use of paint and fluid brushstrokes simplified the composition of her paintings to its
essential elements, leaving at their core the humanity and humble spirit of the figures within them,
so often inspired by the noble islanders she came across on Achill.
