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Aloysius C. O’Kelly (1850-1929) MALE STUDY (WITH A WOODLAND RIVER ON REVERSE) Hugh Lane Gallery l...

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Aloysius C. O’Kelly (1850-1929) MALE STUDY (WITH A WOODLAND RIVER ON REVERSE) Hugh Lane Gallery l...
Aloysius C. O’Kelly (1850-1929)
MALE STUDY (WITH A WOODLAND RIVER ON REVERSE)
Hugh Lane Gallery label on reverse
oil on canvas
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 2003
€8,000-€10,000 (£5,600-£7,000 sterling approx.)