John Behan’s bronze sculpture Birds in Flight will highlight the online sale at Woodward Auctioneers in Cork on November 23. One of our most renowned contemporary sculptors, Behan is the subject of a new feature-length film titled Odyssey directed by Donald Taylor-Black documenting his involvement with migrant camps in Greece.
A commitment to social justice has always been part of his work and John Behan, now in his mid-80s, has given art workshops to migrants and refugees in Athens. The bronze at Woodward’s is estimated at €8,000-€12,000.
JOHN BEHAN (B.1938) – FAMINE SHIP. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
This 2024 famine ship by John Behan is lot 109 at Morgan O’Driscoll’s Irish art online auction which runs until June 24. The bronze is estimated at €15,000-€20,000. The auction features work by artists as varied as Letitia M Hamilton and Nano Reid to Patrick Hennessy, Harry Kernoff and Barbara Warren. Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst and Sean Scully are on the catalogue along with Brian Maguire, Willie McKeown and Felim Egan. The catalogue is online and the sale will be on view in Skibbereen from June 20.
Paul Henry – Connemara Cottages. UPDATE: THIS MADE €120,000 AT HAMMER
Connemara Cottages is one of the works by Paul Henry at de Veres timed online sale of outstanding art and sculpture which begins to close from 6 pm on June 13. The catalogue contains gallery standard works by major artists of the 20th Century. There are three paintings by William Scott and five by Paul Henry as well as by Sean Keating, Roderic O’Conor, Mainie Jellet and contemporary works by Callum Innes, Donald Teskey, Elizabeth Magill, Mark Francis and sculpture by Rowan Gillespie and Patrick O’Reilly.
John Behan RHA – Kyrenia Ship. UPDATE: THIS MADE 5,800 AT HAMMER
Kyrenia Ship by John Behan comes up at Dolan’s timed online Spring auction. The sale goes online today and will run until Monday, March 20. The sculpture is dated to 2008 and is unique. The Greek Cypriot ship, fifteen metres in length, was built in389 BC. It sank around 288 BC three miles off the coast of Kyrenia. The estimate is €4,000-6,000. The sale comprises Irish art and sculpture, almost 60 collectible bottles of Irish whisky including some very rare Midletons, antique furniture and collectibles including rugs and books.
Two Female Nudes, a 1979 watercolour, ink and pencil drawing by John Behan
This watercolour, ink and pencil drawing of Two Female Nudes by the Irish sculptor John Behan sold for £828.75 at Bonhams in London. From the collection of the late design guru Sir Terence Conran the work came up at the sale of the contents of Barton Court, his country house in Berkshire. Conran died in 2020.
Etruscan Evening (1989) by Stephen McKenna. UPDATE: THIS MADE 19,000 AT HAMMER
Viewing for Whyte’s Irish and International art sale gets underway today at the RDS. There is art by Jack B. Yeats, Paul Henry, Patrick Heron, Louis le Brocquy, Norah McGuinness, Sean Keating, Patrick Scott, Grace Henry, Peter Curling, Howard Helmick, John Behan, Patrick O’Reilly, Edward Delaney and a wide variety of other acclaimed painters and sculptors. Viewing is from 10 am to 5 pm for the next three days and the auction is at 6 pm on Monday.
This bronze by the Irish Ukrainian artist Vadim Tuzov made a hammer price of 4,800 over a top estimate of 3,000 at the white glove James Adam sale of collectors and artists for Ukraine organised by Suzanne MacDougald in Dublin today. All 36 lots sold and made over €90,000. When some generous cash donations are added the sale generated €116,000 for the Irish Red Cross Ukrainian Appeal.
The top lot of the day was another piece of sculpture, ‘Liffey Oar Boat’ made and donated by John Behan RHA. It made €10,000. Rowan Gillespie’s diminutive ‘Kneeling Girl’, a bronze from 1982 and donated by a Co. Meath collector, sold for €6,500 while Orla de Brí’s ‘Cross Bearer’ made €4,600.
The top price for a painting was shared by two works – Colin Davidson’s ‘Study of Seamus Heaney’ and Markey Robinson’s West of Ireland Landscape, both of which made €6,500.
(See post on antiqueandartireland.com for March 31, 2022)
Waiting for the Ferry, low tide by Jack B. Yeats UPDATE: THIS MADE 135,000 AT HAMMER
A lone figure stands at the waters edge in Waiting for the Ferry, Low Tide, 1946. This enigmatic Yeats work is the catalogue cover lot at Whyte’s evening sale of Important Irish and International Art in Dublin on March 22. It was acquired by American sculptor Helen Hooker O’Malley in the same year that she sought a divorce from the Irish revolutionary Ernie O’Malley. The O’Malleys were important collectors of Yeats in the 1930’s and ’40’s. His collection, sold by Whyte’s and Christie’s in Dublin in 1919, grossed €5.5 million. She bought it from Leo Smith, who had been co-director of the Waddington Gallery in Dublin before setting up the Dawson Gallery in 1944. Helen gifted it to Liam Redmond, with whom she founded the Dublin Players Theatre in 1944, and it is now estimated at €100,000-€150,000. Redmond was married to Barbara MacDonagh, daughter of poet Thomas MacDonagh who was executed after the 1916 Rising.
Share the Feeling by John Behan. UPDATE: THIS MADE 2,500 AT HAMMER
The virtual auction of 153 lots features work by sculptors John Behan and Rowan Gillespie, paintings by Louis le Brocquy, Paul Henry, Patrick Scott, Camille Souter, William Crozier, James Humbert Craig, Gladys Maccabe, Dan O’Neill and international artists Tracey Emin, Bob Dylan and Damien Hirst.Francis Bacon and Louis le Brocquy met in the 1940’s in London and remained friends until Bacon’s death in 1992. Bacon penned the introduction to a le Brocquy retrospective in 1966. It was not until 1979 that le Brocquy created an image of Bacon and it was one of the few portraits of people he knew personally. His oil of canvas Image of Francis Bacon is estimated at €120,000-€150,000. A watercolour image of Beckett, estimated at €15,000-€20,000, is one of a number of works by le Brocquy in this sale. Spring in Wicklow, a 1920’s landscape by Paul Henry is estimated at €150,000-€200,000. There is much Irish work to choose from with art by Tony O’Malley, Donald Teskey, John Shinnors, William Crozier, John Kingerlee and others. Among these is a still life by Christy Brown with an estimate of €2,000-3,000.A small oil on canvas of ships in moonlight by the noted Dutch artist Johnan Barthold Jongkind (1819-1891) is estimated at €8,000-€12,000. A 2019 lithograph by Tracey Emin (75/200) entitled I Loved my Innocence has an estimate of €3,000-€4,000 and two unnumbered etchings by Damien Hirst from an edition of 68 are each estimated at €1,000-€1,500. Bob Dylan’s are has proved popular in Ireland at past sales and this auction offers three prints by the American singer songwriter at estimates ranging from €1,200 to €5,000.
From Sean Scully and John Behan to Pauline Bewick and Mainie Jellett the selection available at Morgan O’Driscoll’s online Irish art auction which runs to March 8 is comprehensive. Untitled 1996, a unique watercolour, No. 47 from a series of 50, by Sean Scully is estimated at 6,000-9,000. Abstract Composition in gouache by Mainie Jellett is estimated at 4,000-6,000. There is interest in Cat in Winter in the Glass House by Pauline Bewick (5,000-7,000) and John Behan’s Famine Tree (10,000-15,000) and many of the other works. The catalogue is online.
Untitled (1996) by Sean Scully. UPDATE: THIS MADE 17,000 AT HAMMER
Among the works Dublin sculptor John Behan is famous for are his depictions of famine ships in bronze. A rare depiction on canvas of a famine ship by the artist comes up at Whyte’s timed online auction running now. The acrylic on paper has rippling which has led to cracking of the paint. It is estimated at 300-500. According to the auctioneers the sale of over 260 lots with guides from as low €60 to a top estimate of €5,000 will encourage both first-time buyers and seasoned bidders. Many famous Irish artists are represented and the auction runs to October 5.
FAMINE SHIP, 2000 – JOHN BEHAN RHA (B.1938). UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR 460 AT HAMMER
