Propelled on to the international stage by the use of Twitter Genieve Figgis has a contemporary rags to riches story that breaks the mould. In just a decade the Dublin born artist has gone from creating art on the kitchen table and working part time in a shop in order to get by to a secondary market (art already sold once) turnover of €2.6 million and a primary market at auction in Hong Kong. The work she posted on the social media platform attracted the attention of renowned American painter and photographer Richard Prince. He bought some and subsequently introduced Figgis to New York where she is now represented by the Helwaser Gallery and has had a number of solo exhibitions. Figgis has been included in landmark exhibitions and is the first Irish artist commissioned by Dior to reinterpret their Lady Dior handbag.
Lemon Queen by Genieve Figgis comes up at Whyte’s in Dublin with an estimate of €25,000-€35,000. It is among an appetising selection at upcoming sales at Adams on September 27 and Whyte’s on October 2.
The sale of Important Irish Art at Adams offers sculpture, oil paintings, watercolours and tapestries by some of our most admired artists of the 19th and 20th centuries. An atmospheric Yeats – On a Western Quay – is one of a number of lots by the artist. Evening by Paul Henry is a pure landscape dating to 1924/25 and Eden, a late 1940’s Aubusson tapestry designed by Louis le Brocquy are among the main lots. There is striking art by Gerard Dillon and William Conor. 19th century art on offer includes rare works by Sir Thomas Alfred Jones, William John Hennessy and Howard Helmick along with art by James Arthur O’Connor and Thomas Rose Miles. The Kiss by Rowan Gillespie is a 16″ high bronze – number eight from an edition of nine – of a popular public full sized sculpture by Gillespie opposite the National Concert Hall on Earlsfort Terrace in Dublin. It dates to 1990. Torso by the same artist is from 1994. Curiosities of the sale include a limited edition black and white photograph of Michael MacLiammoir by Fergus Bourke, the last ever stage photograph of the dramatist and actor and a leather bound journal by craft student Norah O’Kelly with illustrations by Sir William Orpen and Harry Clarke.
The sale by Whyte’s takes place at Freemason’s Hall on Molesworth St. with viewing at Whyte’s galleries. The catalogue cover lot is The Currach, Kilronan by Gerard Dillon. Still Waters by Sean Keating is an Aran Island work exhibited at the RHA in 1947. Another important lot is ‘He won’t bite you” by Sir John Lavery depicting an infant’s cautious encounter with a curious dog in a Scottish garden. The sale offers paintings by Letitia Hamilton, an early work by John Shinnors of Christine Keeler and a watercolour of Nassau St. in Dublin by Rose Barton once in the Mount Juliet collection of racehorse breeder Major Victor McCalmont and included in the Crawford Gallery Retrospective in 1987. Among the artists featured at Whytes are William Orpen, William Leech, Tony O’Malley, Norah McGuinness and Louis le Brocquy. There are small collections of art by Percy French, Charles Lamb and Patrick Leonard, an early portrait of Paul Henry by Robert Ponsonby Staples, and paintings by Arthur Maderson, Cecil Maguire, Ciaran Clear, Mark O’Neill, Graham Knuttel and Markey Robinson.
