Paul Henry RHA (1876-1958) "Connemara Landscape with Cott...

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Hammer

€17,000

Fees

Paul Henry RHA (1876-1958)

"Connemara Landscape with Cottages and Mountains c. 1923-4" watercolour on paper. signed l.r. ‘Paul Henry’

Bears label ‘The Victor Waddington Galleries 28 South Anne Street, Dublin. No. 3391 – 1’

A quintessential West of Ireland landscape by Henry, this watercolour depicts a group of traditional thatched cottages beside a country road. Behind the cottages can be seen an area of hilly bogland, with blue mountains in the distance, rising towards a cloud-filled sky. A cluster of white boulders marks the field in front of the cottages on the right.

This watercolour was evidently a preparatory sketch for a more finished studio version, documented by S. B. Kennedy and listed in his catalogue raisonné (Cat. 602). The finished version was in its turn translated into an advertisement poster for the London Midland & Scottish Railway. Published in 1925, the caption on the poster read ‘Connemara by Paul Henry “Ireland This Year” ’. By the early 1930’s, along with another image by Henry, it was among the top-selling posters issued by the LMS Railway. Although the present sketch is not listed in Kennedy’s catalogue, it is nonetheless accepted by this writer as an autograph work by Henry, painted probably ‘en plein air’ as the artist travelled in Connemara around 1923-4. It is in its original frame and bears a Victor Waddington label on the back.

Born and raised in Belfast, the son of a Baptist minister, Paul Henry showed aptitude for art from an early age and so was apprenticed to a designer of damask. However, a relative provided funds for him to study on the Continent, and in 1898 Henry travelled to Paris, enrolling at the Académie Julian. He also attended the studio run by James MacNeill Whistler, an American artist whose paintings, with their carefully controlled tonal values, were hugely influential at the time. Henry was also inspired by the work of poster designer Alphonese Mucha, who taught at Whistler’s academy. After moving to London in 1900, Henry produced illustrations for magazines, but turned increasingly to painting. Encouraged by Hugh Lane and John Millington Synge, he began to think about returning to Ireland, and in 1910 he and his wife Grace travelled to Achill Island. Although intending to stay just a few weeks, they ended up spending ten years on Achill. Initially, Henry delighted in depicting the local people as they farming and fished, but after he was employed in 1917-18 to administer payments of the Congested District Board, he began to focus increasingly on landscape. He and Grace moved to Dublin in 1919 and the following year they helped found the Society of Dublin Painters. In 1922 the French government purchased Henry’s painting West of Ireland village. By 1930, through his instantly recognisable views of life and landscape in the West of Ireland, Henry had come to be regarded as embodying in his art many of the ideals of the newly-independent Irish Free State, with exhibitions of his paintings being held in New York, Toronto, Dublin and London.

Ref: Kennedy, S.B. Paul Henry: with a Catalogue of the Paintings, Drawings and Illustrations, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007

Dr. Peter Murray, 2022