"'HK, Two and sixpence.' What's this?" John McDaid asked legendary bar manager Paddy O'Brien, confidant of Behan, Kavanagh and Flann O'Brien, writes Brendan Lynch
"That's for a Harry Kernoff woodcut, A Bird Never Flew on One Wing."
"God blast that man." Mr McDaid thumped the accounts book of the Harry Street bar. "Haven't we a whole flock of them upstairs already? Next time, he pays for his drink like anyone else - and get rid of those bloody birds first thing tomorrow."
James Joyce famously boasted that Dublin could be reconstructed from his books. The same claim can be made with equal conviction for the work of the artist Harry Kernoff, who died on Christmas Day 1974. His affectionate record of city corners and characters captured the vitality and resourcefulness which enlivened Dublin from the 1930s to the 1970s.
Unlike the self-conscious writer, Harry Kernoff struck no artistic or intellectual pose. While faithful to the academic tradition, his studies were informed with spontaneity, warmth and a quirkiness reminiscent of that other urban recorder, L.S. Lowry. His palette was bright and cheerful, his characters lively and individualistic. As with Lowry, a chirpy mongrel or flying gull invariably completed the diversion.
Harry Kernoff was born in 1900 in London of a Russian father and Spanish mother and arrived in Dublin with his parents at the age of 14. While serving a cabinet-making apprenticeship with his father, he attended night classes as the Metropolitan School of Art. Encouraged by his teachers Sean Keating, Harry Clarke and Patrick Tuohy, in 1923 he became the first night student to win the Taylor Scholarship in both watercolour and oils.
He made his debut at the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1926 and exhibited there every year until his death. Elected an associate of the Academy in 1935, he became a full member the following year. He held a one-man show every year in Dublin and he also exhibited in Amsterdam, London, Paris, Chicago, Toronto and Nova Scotia.
His fellow academician Tom Ryan remembered: "Harry Kernoff's style was an acquired taste and didn't have immediate appeal. But he was very skilful at what he did. His Dublin pictures are infused with his idiosyncratic vision and his love for the place and its people. His figures had a slightly bockety quality, but he was a masterful observer. . . everything is there, every building and every chimney."
Aungier Street Scene is a typical example of Harry's ability to enrich the mundane. His lively touch transforms what could have been a depressing scene, as a shawlie pushes her wooden barrow past a derelict house, while a horse grazes on a waste site and the inevitable dog scurries by on his morning patrol. A Bird Never Flew on One Wing is a sublime study of two sparkling Dubs, one sporting an old bowler, the other a jaunty cap, with tankards aloft and the names of many city pubs cleverly worked into the background.
Paintings such as Caravans at Dolphin's Barn also demonstrate how Dublin has changed since the 1930s. The vans are parked beside the canal, a traveller girl feeds the chickens, unspoilt countryside stretches to the southern horizon. Winetavern Street Cab shows the secondhand shops and their hanging clothes which brushed the heads of passers-by up to the mid-1950s.
Though best known for his Dublin studies, Harry also painted in the west and south. He designed costumes and painted theatre sets for plays such as Sean O'Casey's Shadow of a Gunman. He illustrated books for authors including Patricia Lynch, and published three volumes of his own striking woodcuts. He assisted the Yeats family in the production of their Cuala Press broadsheets, some of which he also illustrated.
Harry's left-wing leanings led to friendships with Liam O'Flaherty, Sean O'Casey and Des MacNamara. An avid reader, he mixed with writers more than artists and numbered Frank O'Connor, Michael MacLiammoir and fellow-Forty Foot habitué Brendan Behan among his friends. Never without his wide-brimmed dark hat and black portfolio, the diminutive artist became a Dublin institution, popular for his quick wit and fund of stories. His street fan club ranged from the sober-suited to the vagrant.
Tom Ryan concluded: "Harry was a conscientious worker, but Ireland was a poor place then and he was always close to the breadline. He frequented the Pearl and Palace, Davy Byrne's and Neary's, but he seldom bought a drink for anyone. He simply didn't have the money. Not a cent ever came his way from the State-maintained institutions which seemed to care only for modern art."
The latter was something to which Harry was not sympathetic, despite a brief foray into abstraction. Returning once from an exhibition of abstract and subjective art, he combusted in a 60-line denunciation:
"It strikes him an infant could
do far better,
With the tail of a dachshund
or red setter.
The titles suggested are
anyone's guess,
They spring from the phoney
subconscious mess.
Not worth the charity of
Peter's pence,
Exhibition of puerile
incompetence."
Recognition came late to Harry Kernoff. The Dublin United Arts Club honoured him with a dinner a month before he died and President Cearbhall O'Dalaigh attended his funeral to Dolphin's Barn Jewish Cemetery. In the past decade the value of his work has risen sharply - one painting fetched over €100,000 at a recent London auction.
John McDaid should have held on to his flock of birds.