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  • AN IRISH SELF PORTRAIT AT LONDON ART WEEK

    THIS oil self portrait by the Irish artist Peter J. Keelan is among the highlights at London Art Week which runs at various galleries around Mayfair and St, James’ in central London until July 6.
    Redolent of the more Bohemian artists of the late Victorian and Edwardian periods the portrait is offered by Bagshawe Fine Art of Bury St.  Keelan spent time in Paris and Pont-Aven at the end of the 19th century.  He exhibited at the Royal Hibernian Academy and around 1890 he sent work to the RHA from an address at Pont-Aven.  This was a time when Gauguin, Roderic O’Conor and Walter Osborne were all in residence at Pont-Aven.
    The style of this 18″ x 15″ portrait is naturalistic with broad brush strokes and a stance that is close the viewer.  This work shows that he was plainly an artist of ability.  He remains for now a shadowy figure about whom information is hard to come by.  Bagshawe Fine Art remain confident that they will be able to make a fuller appraisal when more of his work surfaces.

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