Beschreibung:

MALE STUDY (WITH A WOODLAND RIVER ON REVERSE) Aloysius C. O'Kelly (1850-1929)
Signature: Hugh Lane Gallery label on reverse Medium: oil on canvas Dimensions: 46 by 38cm., 18 by 15in. Provenance: Milmo-Penny Fine Art, Dublin Exhibited: ‘Aloysius O’Kelly - Re-orientations: Painting, Politics and Popular Culture’, Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin, 1999, catalogue no. 10 (illustrated) Aloysius O’Kelly studied at the pre-eminent art school of the time, the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1874. Following a period working as an aspirant from the antique, the emphasis shifted onto life study, ... the foundation skill onto which all other artistic, scientific and literary skills, such as anatomy, perspective, history and design, were based. The preferred model was a well-defined male nude, selected primarily for his physique. Known as an académie, this painting is probably one such academic exercise – a head and bare shoulders of an elderly man, probably painted under atelier conditions (the canvas of which was later turned to second use in the production of a signed autumnal landscape). In the studio, the students ranged in a semi-circle around the model, posing for the académie in order of seniority and ability. Whether the académie was drawn or painted depended on the student’s proficiency. The recovery of an académie, such as this, is unusual – the drawn versions were usually kicked around the studio floors, and the painted versions scraped down and reused; they were rarely finished and even more rarely signed. Dr Niamh O’Sullivan NCAD, October 200 more