François-Xavier Lalanne – Oiseau d’argent c1990 UPDATE: THESE SOLD FOR €76,200
Highlights of the Karpidas collection to be sold at Sotheby’s in Paris next Monday and Tuesday include stellar works by Claude and Francois-Xavier Lalanne, Marlene Dumas, Damien Hirst, George Baselitz, Tracey Emin, Sarah Lucas and Nan Goldin. Manchester born Karpidas is an international collector who has surrounded herself with artists for decades. Her home on the Greek island of Hydra has long been a getaway for artists, collectors and curators. There will be an evening sale on October 30 and a day sale on October 31.
The Lissadell Mirror. UPDATE: THIS MADE 3,000 AT HAMMER
Styled The Lissadell Mirror’ this early to mid 19th century gilt overmantel was purchased directly from the Gore-Booth family. Dating to 1840-60 it comes up as lot 523 at Sean Eacrett’s sale of fine art, antiques and collectibles in Ballybrittas, Co. Laois on November 2. It is estimated at €3,000-€5,000. The catalogue, with over 1,000 lots, is online.
EILEEN MEAGHER (20TH/21ST CENTURY) – Connemara Landscape (1988). UPDATE: THIS MADE 2,400 AT HAMMER
Connemara Landscape, a small oil on canvas by Eileen Meagher, comes up as lot 12 in Morgan O’Driscoll’s off the wall online art auction which runs until October 31. The sale offers an affordable collection with lithographs and prints by William Crozier, Damien Hirst, Paul Henry, Roy Lichtenstein, Joan Miro, pencil drawings, watercolours and oils by a wide range of popular Irish and international artists. The catalogue is online.
Part of the latest street mural in Cork, on Harley’s Street, by James Earley, Tony Byrne, and Cian Walker
Artists James Earley, Tony Byrne, and Cian Walker have combined to produce a new street mural for Cork city on Harley’s St. It is part of the Ardu Street Project, now in its fourth year and follows the completion of a new collaborative mural commemorating Tomás MacCurtain on Coburg Street by artists Shane O’Driscoll and Peter Martin last month. On Harley’s St. the artists set out to create a work that alludes to the River Lee, its movement and its importance to the trade of Cork, and Ireland as a whole. Utilising earthy tones offset by more vivid and vibrant colours the piece pays homage to the history of the county and its energy in moving forward as a city of cosmopolitan modernity. Hard-edged geometric shapes make reference to the urban elements of Cork City, in combination with more organic forms that suggest links to the sediment of the river and the more rural areas of the county. There are visual cues hidden within the composition, abstractions on the logos of Dunlop and Ford, for example, the water from the image on the county flag, alongside less oblique references such as the use of Cork marble. Harley’s St. runs between MacCurtain St. and Patrick’s Quay.
Ardú Street Art was established in Cork during lockdown of October 2020, originally bringing seven of Ireland’s most renowned street artists – Deirdre Breen, Maser, James Earley, Peter Martin, Shane O’Driscoll, Aches, and Garreth Joyce – to create large scale murals at key Cork city-centre locations. Thanks to phenomenal community engagement and support, the event returned in 2021 with four more walls unveiled by Shane O’Malley, Friz, Conor Harrington, and Asbestos and again in 2022, with artists Claire Prouvost, Kitsune Jolene, and VENTS137. These fourteen inspiring pieces add greatly to the cultural landscape of the city centre. They’ve been shared widely across online platforms and praised internationally in the likes of Travel US Magazine and the Brooklyn Street Art website.
1913 (9 December) Pádraig Pearse’s membership card for The Irish Volunteers
Padraig Pearse’s 1913 membership card for The Irish Volunteers is the top lot at Whyte’s History sale on November 11. The rarity of this treasure is reflected in an estimate of €150,000-250,000. It is inscribed in Pearse’s own hand in indelible pencil: Pádraic Mac Piarais Sgoil Éanna and numbered 100. The card was gifted by Pearse’s mother Margaret to Micheál Mac Ruaidhrí, thence to his daughter Brid who gifted it to the family of the present owner.
Micheál Mac Ruaidhrí was a mentor and confidant to Padraig Pearse. Dubbed ‘the greatest seanchaí of our time’ by the scholar and patriot Eoin MacNeill, and known to Professor Douglas Hyde, Ireland’s first President, as ‘The Mayo Poet’ because of the musical quality of his Irish he was born in Mayo in 1860. Mac Ruaidhri suffered from poor eyesight and as a result spent just two days in school, preferring instead to occupy his days with the elders of his area. In the process he amassed and retained a vast knowledge of folklore, sagas, history, song and music, all of which he dearly loved, whilst also gaining a genuine love for and understanding of the soil.
As a young man Micheál went to Dublin and worked as a gardener at Stradbrook Estate, Blackrock, before striking up a relationship with the revolutionary and educationalist Patrick Pearse. From the foundation in 1908 of Pearse’s Cullenswood School in Ranelagh, Dublin, Micheaál taught practical gardening and horticulture and in 1910, he, together with his bride, the former Alice Wallace, relocated with Pearse to the Hermitage in Rathfarnham, the site of the future and much celebrated Scoil Eanna -‘St. Endas.’ The Hermitage was to be the site of a new school for boys based on the ancient Irish custom of fosterage, while Cullenswood became a girls school which Pearse named Scoil Íde. St. Enda’s influence on the 1916 Rising is evident by the list of those participants who taught at or attended the school. In addition to Mac Ruaidhri and his assistant Patrick Donnelly and the patriot Pearse brothers, Patrick and Willie, other revolutionaries such as Thomas MacDonagh, Eamon Ceannt, Con Colbert and Fergus de Burca also taught there, as did the writers Padraic Colum and Standish O Grady. Desmond Ryan who fought in the GPO and and Joseph Sweeney who was a sniper on the roof of the GPO were among the sixteen St. Enda’s pupils who participated in the 1916 Rising.
Mac Ruaidhri was in the G.P.O. Dublin, with Pearse on Easter Monday 1916, and stood beside Pearse as he read the Proclamation of the Irish Republic. Due to his bad eyesight and the fact that he was 56 years of age at the time, he was ordered back to St. Enda’s by Pearse with instructions to destroy or hide secret documents. Following the suppression of the 1916 Rebellion, Mac Ruaidhrí was arrested and imprisoned in Frongoch Prison, Wales: at the time he was the oldest prisoner in the gaol and spent his days teaching Irish and history to the other rebel inmates. On his release he returned to St. Enda’s and resumed his career as gardener. After the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1922, a treaty he disagreed with, MacRuaidhri took no further part in politics and concentrated instead on his writing and folklore collecting. Those who sought out his wisdom and knowledge included Eamon De Valera, Dr.Douglas Hyde and Micheál Ó Tiomaindhe (Michael Timoney 1870-1940). Micheál MacRuaidhrí died in May, 1936 aged 76 at his home, St Enda’s Lodge, was buried in Glasnevin cemetery, Dublin.
The Ivy Bench by Sasha Sykes at de Veres. UPDATE: THIS MADE 2,800 AT HAMMER
The sale of classic 20th century design furniture and Irish art at de Veres in Dublin on October 24 offers some cutting edge Irish design alongside a selection of major international designers like Mies van der Rohe, Ingmar Relling, Marceel Breuer, Charles and Ray Eames, Rolf Benz and Ligne Roset. The Ivy Bench by Irish sculptural furniture maker Sasha Sykes is an acrylic and resin piece from an artist who explores the material language of the natural world and is influenced by the Irish landscape. The most expensively estimated lot, at 70,000-100,000, is a west of Ireland painting by Paul Henry of the Maam Valley.
Portrait of Kathleen Behan by Sarah Henrietta Purser (1848-1943), Courtesy National Gallery of Ireland
Sarah Purser: Private Worlds opens today at the National Gallery of Ireland. The exhibition explores the private worlds of her female sitters. There are two portraits of Kathleen Behan (nee Kearney and mother of Brendan) who was one of her favourite sitters. A highlly accomplished portraitist these pensive, introspective works capture the character of her sitters without leaning into sentimentality. Purser was, in 1924, the first women member elected to the RHA and a founding member of the Friends of the National Collections, Ireland. The exhibition continues until February 25
Titania and Bottom, a 1922 stained glass panel by Harry Clarke. UPDATE: THIS MADE 160,000 AT HAMMER
Harry Clarke, Paul Henry, Sir John Lavery and Sean Scully are among the leading Irish artists heading up Morgan O’Driscoll’s online art auction which gets underway on the evening of October 24. Major art of this calibre by established artists does not come cheap and estimates for these four range from €50,000 to €150,000. Any one of them would enormously enhance a serious collection of Irish art.
Secret Garden, Ballinaboy by Kenneth Webb. UPDATE: THIS MADE 19,000 AT HAMMER
In a dazzling and vivid stained glass panel Clarke delves into a scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream featuring Titania and Bottom dated 1922. In a walnut and tortoiseshell cabinet by James Hicks it recreates a strange and marvellous world composed of fragments of transformed reality. Once in the collection of Ann and Gordon Getty, which realised more than $150 million (€143 million) across ten auctions at Christie’s last year, it is estimated at €100,000-€150,000.
There is a similar estimate on Paul Henry’s atmospheric Cottages on Achill Sound which depicts three traditional thatched cottages in a path leading towards the seashore. Most of Henry’s work around Connemara and Mayo includes mountains. in this one the artist has turned away from the land and faces towards the ocean. The Beach, Evening Tangier by Sir John Lavery dates to 1920 and is estimated at €80,000-€120,000. Scully’s Barcelona dates to 1998. The estimate for this watercolour on paper is €50,000-€70,000. These are atmospheric works with their own aura. So is Three Figures by Dan O’Neill, an evocative moonlit scene with three women, their heads covered by scarves, and estimated at €25,000-€35,000. Moonlight features in Connemara by George Campbell, a nightime view, and in Full by Elizabeth Magill.
Studio Table by William Crozier. UPDATE: THIS MADE 14,000 AT HAMMER
In sharp contrast is Studio Table by William Crozier, bright with the artist’s palette of colours, and Harry Kernoff’s Madonna with Faun and Doves, inspired by religious icons. Louis le Brocquy, Jack B Yeats, Evie Hone, Peter Curling, Pauline Bewick, Letitia M Hamilton, Kenneth Webb, John Shinnors and Colin Middleton are among the artists featured in an online catalogue that is brimful of interest. The sale is on view at the RDS today, tomorrow and Monday and gets underway online at 6.30 pm next Tuesday.
Stacking the Turf by Desmond Kinney. UPDATE: THIS MADE 680 AT HAMMER
Affordable art will come under the hammer at Whyte’s online autumn Irish art auction which closes on Monday October 23. This sale offers an array of accessible art from Ireland and around the world. The highest estimated lot, at €2,500-€3,500, is a set of eight Spanish scenes by John Frederick Lewis (1804-1876) in pencil heightened with white. There is art in a range of styles and tastes by artists from Mildred Anne Butler and Jeanne Rynhart to Andy Warhol and Sir William Orpen. Lithographic prints by Paul Henry, a selection by Markey Robinson and artists like Patsy Dan Rodgers, Mark O’Neill, Geraldine O’Brien, Victor Richardson, Liam Treacy, Moyra Barry, Henry Healy, James English and Sir William Orpen make for an interesting catalogue. The sale is on view this afternoon at Whyte’s in Dublin and the catalogue is online.
JAMES ENGLISH RHA (B.1946) – COMPOSITION WITH BUTTERCUPS, 2004 UPDATE: THIS MADE 700 AT HAMMER
Francois Xavier-Lalanne (1927-2008) – Rhinocrétaire I sold for €18,335,000
Francois Xavier-Lalanne’s unique 1964 piece Rhinocrétaire I made €18,335,000 at a dedicated stand alone single lot auction at Christie’s in Paris today. This is a new world record for Lalanne. His first major sculpture had been estimated at €4-€6 million. Rhinocrétaire I first appeared at Jeanine Restany’s trailblazing Galerie J in the artist’s debut joint exhibition with his wife Claude Lalanne. A functional, metamorphic work, Rhinocrétaire I is at once a bar, an illuminated writing desk, and a seminal early sculpture that foreshadows the poetic exuberance and preternatural inventions that defined the artist’s work for the next forty-four years. Exhibited only one other time, at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in 2010, Rhinocrétaire I has remained in the private collection of the same French family since the 1964 Galerie J. exhibition.
