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THE Red Road by Sean McSweeney comes up as lot 12 at Morgan O’Driscoll’s online art sale, which runs until September 13 with an estimate of €2,000-3,000. The auction features more than 220 lots of art and sculpture by artists ranging from William Crozier and Kenneth Maguire to Kenneth Webb and Pauline Bewick. There is sculpture by John Behan, Imogen Stuart, Patrick O’Reilly, Melanie le Brocquy, Michael Foley and others.
A painting by Sean McSweeney acquired by the noted art collector Sir Basil Goulding comes up as lot 231 at the Lynes and Lynes online sale in Carrigtwohill on June 27. The Wicklow landscape, in need of considerable restoration, was once in the boardroom at Gouldings Fertilisers on The Marina in Cork and is estimated at €500-€1,000. In 1962 Sir Basil Goulding was the founding chairperson of the Contemporary Irish Art Society along with Gordon Lambert, Cecil King, Stanley Mosse, James White and Michael Scott. The society aimed to encourage greater patronage of living Irish artists. Gouldings Fertilisers has been in Cork since 1856 when the company was formed.
Among the other artworks on offer are Fishing Boats at Carraroe Pier by Charles Vincent Lamb and an Achill Island view by James Humbert Craig. Each of these works carry an estimate of €1,000-€2,000. Collectors might find interest in a selection of English Victorian music hall and circus posters together as one lot (€300-€500). The sale features a number of writing boxes and an old metal documents box which belonged to Major J. Grove White, who compiled information about houses in North Cork. Among other lots is an Eileen Gray Bibendum armchair (€400-600) and a set of seven antique elm Windsor chairs (€700-€1,000) and an 18th century porcelain vase with the mark of the Emperor Yongzheng.
Sean McSweeney
Sean McSweeney, the featured artist at the Taylor Galleries annual Winter Group Show in Dublin, celebrates his 80th birthday this month. The exhibition showcases work by McSweeney and invited artists. Born in Dublin in 1935 and self-taught as a painter his work has long been rooted in the tradition of Irish landscape painting that stretches back to the 1800’s and beyond. Consistently drawn to the characteristic “horizontality” of the bogland, sea fields and flat expanses of shoreline that surround his home on the Sligo coast, he returns repeatedly to the same subjects, painting them in various lights and through changing seasons. His work featured in the first Irish Exhibition of Living Art in 1962. Cecil King saw his work and recommended him to Leo Smith at the Dawson Gallery. He had his first solo show with the Dawson Gallery in 1965 and has been represented by Taylor Galleries since its establishment in 1978. Sean McSweeney has exhibited extensively in Ireland and abroad and is an honorary member of the Royal Hibernian Academy and a member of Aosdána. His work is represented in major public and corporate collections nationwide as well as private collections in Ireland, the UK, Europe and North America. The exhibition at Taylor runs until January 30, 2016.
