William Scott’s Blue Still Life will lead Whyte’s sale of Important Irish Art in Dublin on May 29. From the McClelland collection it has been on loan to the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) for the past eight years. This large scale work – it measures six feet long by four feet high – has previously been on exhibition at the Tate Gallery in London in 1972, at the Martha Jackson Gallery in New York in 1973, at Gallery Moos in Toronto in 1973 and it was with Richard Green at Art Basel in 2008. It is the most valuable work by artist to appear at auction in Ireland. The estimate is 400,000-600,000. Scott was born in Scotland of an Irish father and spent most of his childhood in Enniskillen.
The sale of more than 180 works will be on display at the RDS from May 27. Top lots include a tapestry – Adam and Eve – by Louis le Brocquy from the McClelland collection, a sculpture in wood by F.E. McWilliam and a large landscape by Paul Henry. There is work by Yeats, Orpen, William Conor, Frank McKelvey, James Humbert Craig, Percy French, William Leech, Micheal Mac Liammoir, Gerard Dillon, Barrie Cooke, Colin Middleton, Norah McGuinness, Camille Souter, Basil Blackshaw, Tony O’Malley and Gwen O’Dowd. The live and online sale will begin at 6 p.m.