Every now and again, a rare painting comes up for auction, and so it is this week. The piece in question is a 1920s watercolour and charcoal (estimate €70,000-€80,000) by Sean Keating, a study for his famous painting, An Allegory, which is in the collection of the National Gallery of Ireland.
“This work has not been seen in public for decades, and the National Gallery painting, An Allegory, is probably the most important work of Keating’s entire life,” says Niall Dolan of Dolan’s Art Auction House in Co Galway.
In her book Sean Keating: Art, Politics and Building the Irish Nation (Irish Academic Press, 2013), Dr Eimear O’Connor wrote that An Allegory – painted in 1923 and first exhibited in 1925 – was meant as a sociopolitical assessment of the pointlessness of the Irish Civil War. Keating’s self-portrait, constructed initially by William Orpen, depicts him lying disillusioned and worn out beneath the branches of an ancient tree. The presence of his wife, May, with a baby in her arms, was seen as a representation of Mother Ireland. O’Connor said that the mother and baby also symbolised a “call for peace and stability in post-Civil War Ireland”. The 1922-1923 war had convinced Keating that violence was not the way forward.
Keating rejected the modernist movement in art, preferring instead traditional paintings of everyday characters with strong facial expressions and gestures
Keating (1889-1977), who is recognised as one of Ireland’s most important painters of the first half of the 20th century, was born in Limerick and studied at the Limerick Technical School and then at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art, under William Orpen. He was professor of art at the National College of Art and Design and president of the Royal Hibernian Academy for more than a decade. He exhibited at the Royal Academy in London from the mid 1920s until the 1950s, and represented Ireland at the New York World Fair in 1939. A retrospective exhibition of his work, opened by the then president Éamon de Valera, was held at the Municipal Gallery of Modern Art (now the Hugh Lane Gallery) in 1963.
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Throughout his life, Keating rejected the modernist movement in art (and was sometimes disregarded by critics for this position), preferring instead traditional paintings of everyday characters with strong facial expressions and gestures. The Aran islands and its inhabitants were the subjects of many of his paintings.
Among other paintings with west of Ireland themes in the Dolan’s online auction are paintings Going to Mass, Roundstone (€8,500-€12,500), and Lifting the Hay, Roundstone (estimate €4,800-€6.500) by Cecil Maguire (1930-2020). The Salthill Diving Boards by Susan Cronin (born 1965), with an estimate of €1,000-€1,500, is one of many paintings in the auction from living artists.
The auction starts today and continues until Monday, August 26th.
If viewing – and indeed buying – art and sculpture in sumptuous surroundings is your thing, then The K Club in Straffan, Co Kildare, is the place to visit between now and September 8th. The venue is one of several lavish country house settings – previous exhibitions have been held at the Culloden Hotel outside Belfast, Castlemartyr Resort in Co Cork and Russborough House in Co Wicklow – where Gormleys fine art dealers choose to display international and Irish sculpture and paintings.
This Art and Soul exhibition includes 90 large sculptures and installations throughout the 550 acre grounds at The K Club, and features pieces by Irish sculptors Patrick O’Reilly, Ian Pollock, Eamonn Ceannt and Bob Quinn. International artists, whose work is on display in the interior of the hotel, include Damien Hirst, Patrick Rubinstein, Banksy, Keith Haring and Julian Opie. The sculpture Altalena Sulla Luna (estimate €215,000), is one of a number of pieces by the Sicilian-born, Giancinto Bosco, which capture his dreamlike imagination.
One particular feature of the current Art and Soul exhibition is 12 new pieces by Belfast-born artist, Donegal-based Martin Mooney. These include Dublin Four Courts (€20,000); Reflections, Russborough House (€14,000); and Tangerine and Red Tulips on Cloth (€20,000). Mooney, regarded as one of Ireland’s most accomplished painters, is best known for his dramatic urban and rural landscapes and floral still life paintings.
The Tara suite in the K Club also hosts a number of Andy Warhol pieces, including Grace Kelly, a 1984 screen-print (€220,000); Birth of Venus, a 1984 screen-print (€175,000); and A Whole Stocking Full of Good Wishes, a lithograph on paper (€17,500).
The K Club is offering special rates for those who quote Art and Soul when booking. Room rates start at €235 per room, per night, including breakfast. Art and Soul will be open to the public 11am-7pm each day until September 8th. There will also be a programme of artists’ talks and daily guided tours.
Meanwhile, potential sellers of Irish art have until Friday, August 23rd, to have paintings valued for potential sale at Whyte’s Irish Art auction on September 30th. The auction rooms on Molesworth Street, Dublin have already consigned paintings by Camille Souter, Mary Swanzy, Grace Henry, Paul Henry, Jack Butler Yeats and Sean Keating for the forthcoming auction.
dolansart.com, gormleys.ie, whytes.ie
What did it sell for?
Persuasions by Cathy Lewis
Estimate €500-€700
Hammer price €500
Auction house O’Reilly’s
Girl with a pink umbrella by Donnacha Treacy
Estimate €2,500-€3,000
Hammer price Unsold
Auction house O’Reilly’s
Chinese porcelain blue and white temple vase
Estimate €300-€600
Hammer price €360
Auction house Hegarty Antiques
Late 19th-century Chinese canton famille rose serving platter
Estimate €150-€250
Hammer price €70
Auction house Hegarty’ Antiques
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