Beschreibung:

A VILLAGE IN CONNEMARA, circa 1922-29 Paul Henry RHA (1876-1958)
Signature: signed lower right; original label on reverse inscribed with artist's name and picture title Medium: oil on canvas Dimensions: 41 by 61cm., 16 by 24in. Provenance: Edgar Horn Auctioneers, Eastbourne, Sussex, 12 July 2000, lot 259, reproduced in colour on cover of sale catalogue; Private collection, Warwickshire Possibly a scene in Achill Sound, in which case the background mountain is Corraun. The composition has similarities to a number of other Henry works of this period. In particular, the setting may be ... the same as that in his Evening on Achill Sound picture of 1924-25 (sold Adam’s, Dublin, 26 May 2004), and Achill Sound, 1923 (sold de Vere’s, Dublin, 26 November 2002). It also bears a resemblance to the earlier Connemara Landscape of 1916-19 (sold Whyte’s, Dublin, 21 September 2004), although in the latter Henry has taken a less distant view of the scene. In all of these pictures the disposition of the cottages in the middle distance, and the hills behind with their reflections in the water, bear a close resemblance to one another. In A Village in Connemara the precision of the handling of the paint, with its subtle yet descriptive treatment of surface and form, the carefully defined cottages and the almost minimalist suggestion of course grass or scrub in the foreground point to 1922-29 as a probable date of execution. The absence of a human presence in the composition, save for the scattered habitation, the sense of stillness, the closely modulated tones and limited palette demonstrate the continuing influence of Whistler, his teacher, on Henry at this time. A Village in Connemara is provisionally numbered 0999 in S. B. Kennedy’s ongoing catalogue raisonné of Paul Henry’s oeuvre. Dr S. B. Kennedy, Belfast, October 200 more