What Sean O Faolain described as the special drama of mobile light had returned to Paul Henry’s painting when he made Landscape Connemara. Clouds in the upper third of the composition evoke a sense of enthusiasm and joy. The oil on canvas comes up as lot 17 at Whyte’s sale of Irish and international art on March 9 with an estimate of €120,000-€150,000.
By the early 1930’s Paul Henry had settled into life in Carrigoona Cottage in Enniskerry County Wicklow with his partner, and later his second wife, the artist Mabel Young RHA whom he had first met in 1924. The mid-1920s had been fraught with both marital and financial troubles for Henry but life with Young in Enniskerry reinvigorated the artist. ‘Henry’s palette, like his mood, lightened as his financial and domestic problems faded.’ By September 1934 he was legally separated and it would appear his thirst for inspiration had returned following a holiday in County Kerry.
Included in the sale are works by Henry, Roderic O’Conor, William Conor, Walter Osborne, Aloysius O’Kelly, William Orpen, Mildred Anne Butler, Jack Butler Yeats, Seán Keating, Norah McGuinness, Evie Hone, Daniel O’Neill, Tony O’Malley, Rowan Gillespie and many others. International artists represented in the collection include L. S. Lowry, David Hockney, Frank Bowling, Josef Herman and Maurice Poirson.