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Artist: Margaret Clarke RHA (1888-1961) Title: Trees and Elder Trees Signature: signed lower left and titled verso Medium: oil on canvas Size: 53½ x 35½cm (21.1 x 14in) Framed Size: 68 x 50.5cm (26.8 x 19.9in) Provenance: Private Collection a#morebtn { color: #de1d01; } a#morebtn:hover { cursor: pointer;} In this small but fine landscape, Clarke captures the colour and freshness of a wooded hillside. In the middle distance, dark evergreen trees rear skywards, while in the foreground the brighter splash of alder trees, with white blossom, adds a dash of bright colour to the composition. In the backgro... Read more In this small but fine landscape, Clarke captures the colour and freshness of a wooded hillside. In the middle distance, dark evergreen trees rear skywards, while in the foreground the brighter splash of alder trees, with white blossom, adds a dash of bright colour to the composition. In the background blue hills are visible, silhouetted against a white cloudy sky. Born in Newry, Co. Down in 1884 and a student of William Orpen at the Metropolitan School of Art in the first years of the twentieth century, Margaret Clarke (neé Crilley) has been rediscovered in recent years as one of Ireland's foremost painters of that period. Orpen had a high regard for her draughtsmanship and regarded her as one of his best pupils. Among her fellow students were Ethel Rhind, Harry Clarke (who she was to marry) and James Sleator. On a visit to Inis Oirr in 1914, along with fellow students, she drew some of the ancient monuments on the island. Her portrait of her sister, Robin Redbreast now in the Ulster Museum, is one of her finest works. She first exhibited at the RHA in 1913 and continued to show at the Academy throughout her life. After her marriage to Harry Clarke in 1914, the raising of three children occupied much of her time but she continued to paint, including portraits of her family, and of the interiors of the family home in North Frederick Street in Dublin. Her portrait of Lennox Robinson is in the Crawford Art Gallery. She also painted portraits of her husband Harry Clarke even as his health deteriorated due to tuberculosis. Some of her paintings were complex allegories of life, notably Strindbergian, a work dating from 1927 (Ulster Museum). In 1930 Clarke was commissioned to create five poster designs for the Empire Marketing Board, and after her husband's death the following year, she took over the running of the stained glass studios in North Frederick Street. She also continued to paint however and had a second solo exhibition in 1939, which included portraits and landscapes. A founding member of the Irish Exhibition of Living Art in 1943, she was open to newer developments in art, including abstraction: she helped organise the Evie Hone retrospective of 1958 and was cataloguing the works of Mainie Jellett when she died in 1961. Peter Murray, September 2019