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Nevill Johnson – Europe 1945. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR 13,970
There is more than a sense of history repeating itself in this 1945 work by Nevill Johnson at Sotheby’s Irish Sale in Paris from April 25-May 2. The work was included in Johnson’s solo exhibition with Waddington in April 1950 and reflects his response to the inhumanity and destruction of war. The road sign acts as a signifier of the human figure, and also represents a modern civilisation that seems to have vanished, a road sign standing where no roads remain. A post-atomic cloud floats above a desert of stones, with hills in the distance; the skeletal, lizard-like form in the foreground is likely to be derived from a piece of the driftwood that Johnson collected. It comes up as lot 23 at Sotheby’s with an estimate of €7,000-€10,000. There is work by Roderic O’Conor, Louis le Brocquy, Colin Middleton, Patrick Scott, F E McWilliam, John Behan, Rowan Gillespie and others. The catalogue is online.