No less than 25 landscape drawings from the Royal Collection recently attributed to Thomas Gainsborough go on display in Ireland for the first time today. Young Gainsborough: Rediscovered Landscape Drawings at the National Gallery of Ireland until June 12 features work produced in the late 1740’s when the artist was in his twenties. Previously believed to be by Sir Edwin Landseer the art historian Lindsay Stainton identified one as a study for Gainsborough’s most celebrated landscape painting Cornard Wood c1748 and they have all been reattributed. The preparatory work will hang alongside the newly conserved Cornard Wood on loan from the National Gallery in London.
Anne Yeats (1919-2001) – Image of Solitude at Whyte’s (€3,000-€5,000). UPDATE: THIS MADE 5,800 AT HAMMER
With big sales in the offing by Whyte’s, Morgan O’Driscoll, de Veres and Adams and Sotheby’s actively seeking works for a major sale in Paris in May the selling year for Irish art really notches up a gear this month. War in Ukraine notwithstanding there is at this stage little to suggest that 2022 will not equal or even surpass the stellar year that was 2021 when the market performed in a rock solid fashion.
The evening sale of Irish and International Art by Whyte’s at Freemason’s Hall, Molesworth St., Dublin on March 7 is on view this weekend. There is work by Paul Henry, Dan O’Neill, Colin Middleton, Sir John Lavery, Roderic O’Conor, Grace Henry, Walter Osborne, Norah McGuinness, Anne Yeats, John Shinnors, Patrick Hennessy, Patrick Scott, Louis le Brocquy, Pauline Bewick, Stephen McKenna and many others. The sale includes a selection of work from the collection of Lady Augusta Gregory with art by John and Jack Yeats, George Russell and Robert Gregory. Among them are portraits of Robert Gregory and J.M. Synge by John Butler Yeats. The most expensively estimated work is Lobster Fishermen off Achill by Paul Henry (€200,000-€300,000). Dan O’Neill’s Girl with Tambourine is estimated at €30,000-€50,000, as is another Paul Henry work, a west of Ireland landscape from 1929. Adam, one of three works from Louis le Brocquy’s Garden tapestries series (1999-2011) is estimated at €30,000-€40,000. A number of works on offer, like Grace Henry’s Fair Day, Connemara (€15,000-€20,000), Figure and Cottages, Carraroe by Charles Lamb (€2,000-€3,000) and Ireland’s Teardrop (The Fastnet Rock) Ciaran Clear’s atmospheric night oil complete with large sailing ship presumably headed out to the Atlantic (€3,000-€5,000), hark back to a vanishing Ireland of yesteryear. There is no shortage of contemporary art including an archival pigment print by the Cork street artist making big international waves Conor Harrington (born 1980) whose Study for the Blind Exit is estimated at €4,000-€6,000 at Whyte’s. On a completely different tack is Sir John Lavery’s 1931 oil sketch for the portrait of Hugh Lowther, the Earl of Lonsdale commissioned by the city of Doncaster. The second son, Hugh was not expected to inherit the title and his wild youth included running away from Eton to join the circus. Later in life Lonsdale promoted Doncaster race course and opened the airport, was first president of the National Sporting Club, inaugurated The Lonsdale Belt in 1909, was a senior steward at the Jockey Club and chaired the Automobile Association and Arsenal Football Club. The Lavery is estimated at €25,000-€40,000.
Albert Hartland (1840-1893) – Gougane Barra, Co. Cork at Morgan O’Driscoll (€400-€600). UPDATE: THIS MADE 460 AT HAMMER
There will be viewing in Skibbereen on Monday and Tuesday for O’Driscoll’s Important Irish Art auction which gets underway at 6.30 pm on March 8. Morgan O’Driscoll is the online sale specialist and this auction will attract a national and international following. Arthur Maderson, Evie Hone, Kenneth Webb, Markey Robinson, Bridget Flannery, Patrick Scott, Roderic O’Conor, Jack Yeats, Paul Henry, Maurice Wilks, Pauline Bewick, Sean Scully, Brian Maguire, Mr. Brainwash, Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, Christo, John Behan, Siobhan Bulfin and Helen Walsh are among the artists and sculptors whose work will feature in a wide ranging sale of 264 lots in total.
Magritte’s L’empire des lumières (1961) made £59,422,000 ($79.8 million) at Sotheby’s Modern and Contemporary evening auction. This was the highest price ever paid for a painting in GBP in Europe and it tripled the artist’s record. The paradox at its core, as in all of Magritte’s best work, is the artist probing an inherently magical quality as the opposite of our everyday. ‘I have always felt the greatest interest in night and day, without however having any preference for one or the other,’ noted Magritte. ‘This great personal interest in night and day is a feeling of admiration and astonishment.
Claude Monet’s limpid Nympheas (1914–1917) – described by the artist as being ‘the illusion of an endless whole, of a watery surface with no horizon and no shore… made £23,228,500.
(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for February 16, 2022)
GEORGIAN MAHOGANY DWARF LINEN PRESS, UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
This newly restored dwarf Georgian linen press is lot one at Hegarty’s auction in Bandon on March 6. There is antique furniture, art and jewellery pieces on offer including a yellow snake and moonstone pendant necklace, an Art Deco style diamond and ruby ring and a neatly sized secretaire bookcase with string inlay. The linen press is estimated at 900-1,200. The catalogue is online.
Susan Cronin – PLAYTIME. UPDATE: THIS MADE 400 AT HAMMER
Estimated at 400-600 Playtime by Susan Cronin is lot 17 at Dolan’s Spring auction of Irish antiques, art and whiskeys which runs until the evening of March 7. The timed online sale features work of 20th century and contemporary Irish & International artists along with antique furniture and collectibles.
THOMAS MORAN (1837-1926) – A Passing Shower in the Yellowstone Cañyon. UPDATE: THIS MADE $1,740,000
Stewards of the West: The Knobloch Collection,a dedicated live auction of Western American Art comes up at Christie’s in New York on May 18. The late entrepreneur and conservationist Carl W. Knobloch, Jr. built a striking private assemblage of Western American painting and sculpture that reflects his deep commitment to the region, while developing a reputation as a leading connoisseur and collector in the field. Off the walls of the family’s Wyoming residence, the collection is notable for its exceptional quality and features the leading artists of the genre such as Thomas Moran, Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Remington and Henry F. Farny, among others. Proceeds of the auction will benefit The Knobloch Family Foundation which is committed to grant making that ensures the conservation of natural ecosystems. With approximately 75 lots, the collection is expected to make in the region of $15 to $23 million.
Pablo Picasso’s La fenêtre ouverte (1929) made £16,319,500
The Shanghai to London sale series at Christie’s established a pioneering cultural dialogue between two of the art market’s major hubs and made a total of £249,070,155. Sell-through rates of 90% by lot and 93% by value demonstrated the confidence of the market, building on the successes we witnessed in 2021. Across the three sales, registered bidders from 34 countries and 5 continents reflect the strength of global demand, with 21% of buyers from Americas, 31% APAC and 49% EMEA. Millennial collectors accounted for 28% of registrants.
Shanghai to London led with museum quality paintings by Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Franz Marc, and Pablo Picasso: Franz Marc’s The Foxes (Die Füchse) sold for £42,654,500, setting a new world auction record for the artist and the highest price ever achieved in Europe for a restituted work of art. Francis Bacon’s Triptych 1986-7 made £38,459,206 and Lucian Freud’s Girl with Closed Eyes (1986-87) made £15,174,500.
THIS Irish Regency convex mirror within a moulded frame surmounted by a carved eagle above a pierced stylized scallop shell sold for a hammer price of 5,200 at the opening day of Sheppard’s four day sale of contents from Erindale House today. It had been estimated at 5,000-8,000. An antique Irish spinning wheel made 550 at hammer and other hammer prices so far include the following: large gothic panelled peat buckets (1,700), neo classical marble chimney piece (4,200), pair of 19th century brass lamps (1,700), Edwardian Sheraton satinwood inlaid cabinet (1,400), Killarney wood chess set (3,600), Martin Finnin Abstract Study (3,300), large Donegal carpet (2,200), pair of brass bound campaign chests (1,500), 19th century kingwood games table (1,500), 19th century French ormolu clock (2,400), Celtic phoenix pattern runner (1,900) and a pair of brass bound peat buckets (2,600).
JOHN BUTLER YEATS RHA (1839-1922 – PORTRAIT OF JOHN MILLINGTON SYNGE. UPDATE: THIS MADE 8,500 AT HAMMER
This portrait of playwright John Millington Synge by John Butler Yeats comes up as lot 27 at Whyte’s sale of Irish and International art in Dublin on March 7. A key figure in the Gaelic Revival he is best known as author of The Playboy of the Western World and as co-founder with W B Yeats and Lady Gregory of The Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Estimated at 8,000-12,000 it is one of a number of works from the collection of Lady Gregory in the auction from artists like John and Jack Yeats, George Russell and Robert Gregory. The sale goes on view at Whyte’s at Molesworth St. in Dublin on March 2.
(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for February 14, 2022)
Ann Burns, Geosensory Soundscape, digital still from virtual reality sculpture
Art and the environment is the focus of Idir Sholas, the MA graduate exhibition at Uilinn, the West Cork Arts Centre in Skibbereen until March 26. With a diverse range of media the exhibition showcases the work of graduates of the first masters degree to be located in west Cork – Deirdre Archbold, Ann Burns, Guy Dalton, Sinéad McCormick, Sylwia Migdal, Katie Nolan and Ruairí Ó Donnabháin. This innovative masters degree makes the relationship between arts and environments – ecological, spatial, political, economic – the focus of its study. It has extended a range of creative opportunities for islanders and the broader West Cork community. The exhibition represents the journey made by students who have been actively involved in contemporary culture as organisers, makers and commentators over the past 17 months.
