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Staccato is the title of an exhibition at Kenmare Butter Market, the new and exciting venue contemporary art in Kenmare. There is new work by Bridget Flannery, Paul Hughes and Paddy Lennon. Viewing is by appointment in a gallery that was once a farmers butter market, now totally repurposed into a gallery space. The show is open every day until August 14.
This volatile and brilliant piece by acclaimed artist Maud Cotter is titled Without Stilling. The inner edge is geometric and beautiful, the outer edge grasps at an unknowable future, within its folds it contains the energy of a lightly coiled spring. Made of Finnish birch ply – each piece hand cut, made wet and folded where necessary – this remarkable artwork speaks to the nature of form. It is part of Cotter’s solo exhibition entitled “a consequence of – a dappled world” at the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin until August 8. It is definitely easier to make sense of a landscape or a portrait bust than abstraction. Contemporary art and sculpture is challenging. If you are unsure about abstraction just take a long look and seek a response within yourself. There is a clue in the exhibition title inspired by the Gerald Manley Hopkins poem Pied Beauty.
The Cubist influence is apparent in Norah McGuinness’s painting of Youghal, Co. Cork which comes up as lot number 2 at Morgan O’Driscoll’s online sale next Tuesday evening. The medium is gouache, the painting measures 14″ x 18.3″ and it is estimated at €1,500-€2,500. Born in Co. Londonderry Norah McGuinness studied at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art and Chelsea Polytechnic. She worked in Dublin as an illustrator and stage designer in the 1920’s and went to Paris on the advice of Mainie Jellett in 1929 to study with Andre Lhote. In the 1930’s McGuinness lived and worked in London and New York before returning to Ireland in 1939 and settling in Dublin. Associated in Ireland with the modern movement in Ireland she helped found the Irish Exhibition of Living Art.
This high summer season sale of 256 lots runs until next Tuesday evening (August 3). From an etching by Sean Scully to a landscape by James Arthur O’Connor the choice is wide and designed to suit all tastes. A brooding Co. Down landscape by Dan O’Neill stands in sharp contrast to a photo realist work by Eileen Meagher of the Erriff River at Delphi in Co. Mayo. There is work by Kenneth Webb, Pauline Bewick, Patrick Scott, Percy French, Mark O’Neill, Barrie Cooke, Mildred Anne Butler and many more acclaimed Irish artists and sculptors.
Here is an informative video about the remarkable Giacometti family from the exhibition at the Fondation Maeght in Provence until November 14.
George Wallace: Reflections on Life is on view for the second time at the National Gallery of Ireland. More than 60 artworks drawn from the large collection presented to the Gallery by the Wallace family in 2016 are on display in a show previously closed due to Covid. There are etchings, monotypes, woodcuts and drawings. George Wallace (1920-2009) was born in Dublin but lived in Canada for most of his life. The exhibition continues until August 29.
Sunset in Mayo, a watercolour by the noted songwriter and painter Percy French, is lot 30 at Morgan O’Driscoll’s online sale of Irish art which runs until August 3. The estimate is €4,000-€6,000. There are 256 lots on offer in a sale designed to suit all tastes. The many visitors to west Cork right now will have an opportunity to view this sale in person at Morgan O’Driscoll’s offices in Skibbereen. There will be in person viewing right over the August Bank Holiday weekend. The sale is on view from 11 am to 5 pm from July 30 to August 2 and from 11 am to 3 pm on the day of the auction.
The artist Robert Fagan (1761-1816) is described by Strachan Fine Art as one of the outstanding, unconventional Irish talents who feature in the history of 18th century British art. The London based portrait specialists will bring this unfinished portrait of the artist’s daughter Esther Maria Fagan (1792-1859) held by her nurse in an Italian landscape to the Cotswold Art and Antique Dealers Association fair at Compton Verney in Warwickshire from October 14-17. Robert Fagan’s parents came to London from Cork and his father established a successful bakery business at Long Acre. By 1781 he had settled in Rome where he painted portraits in the neoclassical style of English visitors. In 1807 he moved to Sicily and was eventually appointed Consul General for Sicily and Malta. His daughter, known as Estina, married William Baker and after his death married Francis Acton, nephew of Sir John Acton, Prime Minister of Naples.
THIS summer of auctions is continuing at a brisk pace. A variety of interesting and one off lots will come under the hammer in Ireland over the next few days. More than 600 lots will come under the hammer at Fonsie Mealy’s sale of contents from Osberstown House, Naas on July 27. Osberstown is an elegant country home with all the trappings that make such places special. Hunting through the catalogue you will find everything from a four poster bed and garden statues to antique furniture and rugs, a console mirror and even an Irish silver replica of the Phoenix monument at Phoenix Park. There are comfortable button back leather library armchairs, painting and limited edition prints by Pauline Bewick, a Victorian breakfront wardrobe, a walnut dining suite, an Arts and Crafts five drawer chest, a selection of artworks, a cylinder bureau, a cheval mirror and much more to choose from.Viewing by appointment will be available on Monday. The catalogue is online and the sale will be online only from Castlecomer.
UPDATE: The Osberstown House sale realised over €370,000 on the hammer. The top lot was a massive pair of recumbent Great Danes by Triton 2001 in a limited edition 21/100 which made €5,800 at hammer.
If you picture yourself as a Viking warrior slashing and burning your way through oodles of Covid restrictions and combatting bureaucratic enemies more fearsome and confusing than any ancient dragons then Sean Eacretts auction in Ballybrittas, Co. Laois on July 26 is for you. He is selling MGM props from Vikings and Game of Thrones online on Monday. International interest is guaranteed but estimates are reasonable. A pair of tall metal candleabra from Game of Thrones is estimated at €400-€800 and King Ivor’s throne from Vikings season four is estimated at €300-500. Or you might prefer King Alfred’s throne from season five. There are special tables and boat chairs along with a selection of axes, cabinets and chests in highly decorative hardwood from the Great Hall of Kattegat as filmed in Ashford, Co. Wicklow. The sale features fine art, antiques and collectibles as part one and MGM props as part two.
Meantime Aidan Foley’s summer sale of antiques and interiors online from Kilcolgan, Co. Galway takes place today and tomorrow. There is art by George Gillespie, Maurice Wilks, Graham Knuttel, Arthur Maderson, John Skelton, Colin Middleton and others. The auction offers Persian rugs, antique furniture, silver, Waterford Crystal, a pair of 19th century military epaulettes, old banknotes and garden furniture.The pub section, which is always popular, includes a Bendigo Tobacco mirror from a pub clearance in Ballyhaunis as well s prints, collectibles and glassware. The online sale is on view today in Kilcolgan and the online auction is at 11 am tomorrow and on Monday.
There will be 627 lots at Fonsie Mealy’s sale of contents from Osberstown House, Naas online from Castlecomer on July 27. There is a fine selection of antique furniture, art, lamps, mirrors, garden furniture and a variety of collectibles.
Here is a video from the house:
A four phase exhibition to showcase the collection of the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) and to mark 30 years of IMMA opens in Dublin on July 30. The Narrow Gate of the Here-and-Now will open in four phases throughout 2021. Each new chapter will explore the past three decades through different thematic approaches. Chapter One: Queer Embodiment opens on 30 July followed by Chapter Two: The Anthropocene on 24 September; Chapter Three: Social Fabric on 5 November; and Chapter Four: Protest and Conflict on 19 November. The exhibition traces urgent themes across the 30-year period as they impact the personal, the political and the planetary, and prompts thinking about the effects of globalisation today in the Irish context as we respond to global crises from COVID-19 to Climate Change and the Black Lives Matter movement.
Queer Embodiment maps the context for the project. It reflects on the dramatic legislative changes that occurred in Irish society such as the decriminalisation of homosexuality (1993), provision of divorce (1996), marriage equality (2015) and the repeal of the Eighth Amendment (2018). These moments in the struggle for human rights find echoes across the globe, as grassroots movements continue to contest the impact of the State on the Body.
