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John Bellany – Masquerade at Sheppards. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD

At this time of year with its focus on the newest interior fashions and the latest colour trends what is overlooked is that beloved paintings changed around at home almost always end up being looked at anew.  Try it.  If your favourite painting has been hanging in the same place for so long that it is practically part of the furniture it is almost certainly no longer appreciated as it deserves to be.  Real art is about looking, not background decoration.

Nothing promotes a refresh so much as an addition to the collection which necessitates a re-hang.  Which is where auctions in Ireland next week come into play. 

Peter Curling – Neck and Neck at Morgan O’Driscoll. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD

How about a fast paced horse racing painting from Peter Curling? A luminous oil of evening light from the final years of artist Joseph Malachy Kavanagh in Brittany, or perhaps something more abstract, modern, post modern, contemporary or now? There is ample opportunity  for collectors to spring into action at art sales by Morgan O’Driscoll on the evening of February 23 and Sheppards in Durrow on the following day.  Both catalogues are online and will richly reward a long, slow perusal.

Morgan O’Driscoll kicks off with Birds of a Feather, a pastel on paper by Graham Knuttel who proved his popularity at Adam’s highly successful Graham Knuttel Part II sale in Dublin last week where his work sold like hot cakes.

Damien Hirst – Circle Spin at Morgan O’Driscoll. UPDATE: THIS MADE €3,400 AT HAMMER

Variety is a hallmark at O’Driscoll’s sale with everything from a highly colourful abstract landscape by Colin Middleton and a 1969 litho by Louis le Brocquy entitled Death of Fraech from the Tain series to an appetising still life by William Crozier, Equinox 2016 by Felim Egan and a famine ship by John Behan. On the international side the sale offers work by Damien Hirst, Mr Brainwash and Andy Warhol. 

Willam Scott, Basil Blackshaw, John Butler Yeats, Countess Markievicz, Liam O’Neill, Frank McKelvey, Pauline Bewick and Rowan Gillespie are all included in the online catalogue of 246 lots.

The 310 lot auction at Sheppards is anchored by the collection of Gerry Cuddy in Co. Antrim and a curated group of works from the studios of Barrie Cooke and Sonja Landweer.  The auction offers what Peter Murray describes as one of the “finest landscape paintings” by Grace Henry.  It is of Achill Island, painted between 1912 and 1919 and estimated at €12,000-€15,000.  This makes it the second highest estimate of the auction, after John Bellany’s Masquerade with an estimate of €25,000-€35,000. Bellany was one of the most influential Scottish artists of the post World War 2 era and David Bowie was among those who collected his work.

George Mullins – Animated River Landscape, Homestead and Castle Beyond at Sheppards. UPDATE: THIS MADE 8,500 AT HAMMER

Animated Landscape by George Mullins (€10,000-€15,000) at Sheppards is one of the very few fully authenticated paintings by the artist that is known.  Shaped Form, a bronze by Sonja Landweer, is estimated at €5,000-€8,000 and there is a strong representation by Northern Irish artists like William Conor, Dan O’Neill, James Humbert Craig, Markey Robinson and Maurice Wilks.

The auction offers a breadth of materials across many price ranges with art by Letitia Marion Hamilton, Rose Barton, Albert Hartland, Arthur Maderson, Eoin MacLochlainn, John Shinnors, Kenneth Webb, Ian Pollock, Rory Breslin, Fr. Jack Hanlon, Mildred Anne Butler and many others.