69
Daniel O’Neill (1920-1974) HORSEMAN PASS BY
Currency:EUR
Category:Everything Else / Other
Start Price:NA
Auction Date:2005 Apr 26 @ 18:00 (UTC+00:00 : GMT)
Location:Dublin, Ireland
Daniel O’Neill (1920-1974) HORSEMAN PASS BY<BR>signed lower right; inscribed on reverse<BR>oil on board<BR>51 by 69cm., 20 by 27in.<BR><BR>Provenance:<BR>Purchased from the artist in 1971 by George and Maura McClelland;<BR>Sold privately circa 1980;<BR>’The Irish Sale’, Sotheby’s, 21 May 1999, lot 365;<BR>Private collection<BR><BR>Exhibited:<BR>’Daniel O’Neill: Recent Paintings’, Dawson Gallery, Dublin, 12-31 May 1971<BR><BR>Literature:<BR>Gena Lynam, ‘Daniel O’Neill (1920-1974): Landscape and Figure Painter’, Irish Arts Review, Volume 15, 1999, page 141<BR><BR>Daniel O’Neill began to paint in the early 1940s when World War II and the 1941 Blitz of Belfast were taking place. He had followed his father’s trade as an electrician and worked night shifts with Belfast Corporation and, later, at the Belfast shipyard, which allowed him to paint at home by day. He maintained this gruelling schedule until 1945 when, at the age of 25, he received a gallery contract from Victor Waddington, which allowed him to paint full-time. The variety, quantity and quality of the work produced during this period suggests a painter restlessly pursuing his ideas with the intensity of one relieved from the need to earn a living by more mundane means. O’Neill was now free to give everything to his passion for painting.<BR><BR>He first exhibited in Dublin in a joint exhibition with Gerard Dillon, at the Contemporary Painters Gallery, Lower Baggot Street, in 1943, and from then on, annually, at the Irish Exhibition of Living Art and at the RHA. His first one man show was held at the Waddington Galleries in 1946 and, later that year, he participated in an exhibition entitled Four Northern Painters, also at Waddington’s, with Dillon, George Campbell and Nevill Johnson. These artists formed the nucleus of a group of painters who represented Ireland abroad in group shows held in Los Angeles, New York and Boston, as well as London and Amsterdam, over the next decade.<BR><BR>O’Neill’s 1952 retrospective, sponsored by CEMA (the Arts Council of the day), which was held at the Belfast Museum and Art Gallery, attracted record attendances and helped establish his reputation as an important painter. This was a remarkable achievement for one largely self-taught, and who had been painting professionally for barely ten years.<BR><BR>When asked, “What do you paint?” O’Neill would reply that he painted people in landscapes and landscapes with people in them. However, as can be seen from any survey of his work, he also dealt with the eternal themes of birth and death and what it feels like to be a human being in a hostile environment.<BR><BR>Liam Kelly refers to the duality of the comic/tragic Pierrot figures in the work of Dillon and O’Neill, and to “the imaginative, often haunting, melancholic, interaction between figure and environment, mood and circumstance”1. Of course O’Neill was not primarily interested in the landscape in itself, but rather used the environment as a symbolic backdrop to the concerns and dreams of the figures that inhabit it.<BR><BR>O’Neill moved to London in 1958 and although he continued to visit Belfast regularly, his work was rarely seen in Ireland during the following years as most of his output was channelled through the Waddington Galleries in Montreal. However, there were two very successful exhibitions of his work at the Dawson Gallery in 1960 and again in1963.<BR><BR>Encouraged by George McClelland, O’Neill returned permanently to Belfast in 1970. McClelland in turn organized O’Neill’s first exhibition in Belfast for eighteen years, which was held at the McClelland Gallery. This was followed by an exhibition at the Dawson Gallery, which opened on 12th May 1971. Horseman Pass By was one of thirty-two works exhibited.<BR><BR>Desmond MacAvock, art critic with The Irish Times, reviewed the show and noted that O’Neill had always shown the greatest consistency of manner, style and subject matter of the “Belfast School of Contemporary painting”2. He found the exhibition to be a “maturing of his vision and its treatment” and concluded that while O’Neill had been “content to cultivate a small, perhaps claustrophobic garden … he has made it yield very considerable fruits, luscious and soft, full of pleasure and delight” 3. The exhibition was also reviewed by The Irish Press where the fairy tale quality of Horseman Pass By was noted, among other works, for “atmosphere and mystery” 4.<BR><BR>The title Horseman Pass By is taken from W.B. Yeats’ poem Under Ben Bulben, of which the following lines in turn constituted the poet’s own epitaph: <BR><BR><BR>”No marble, no conventional phrase;<BR>On limestone quarried near the spot<BR>By his command these words are cut:<BR>Cast a cold eye<BR>On life, on death<BR>Horseman, pass by!”<BR><BR><BR><BR>Like Yeats, O’Neill may also have had his own mortality in mind when he painted the work, inspired by concerns about his health. Another work painted about this time, The Sisters – A Dream (recently shown at the 2004/2005 IMMA Hunter Gatherer exhibition) was inspired by a premonition of his own death, which he claimed had come to him in a dream.<BR><BR>The painting Horseman Pass By may also, of course, reflect a concern for the wellbeing of his native city, which was, at that time riven by communal strife. When O’Neill returned there in 1970 he was distressed by the devastation as can be seen in his works Belfast After the Riot and Belfast Expo 70, where bombed out vehicles are set against a frieze of ruined dwellings. The iconography of the white charger of King William III is one of the most potent Ulster symbols. The mounted rider is clearly O’Neill, being led away from the city by the muse: retreating, perhaps, to the more enchanted kingdom of his imagination.<BR><BR>Anne Marie Keaveney,<BR>Artist, Lecturer, National College of Art and Design, Dublin<BR><BR>The author would like to acknowledge the assistance of the following people who granted her interviews: T. P. Flanagan (8 December1998), Eileen O’Neill Triber (13 February 1999) and Maureen O’Neill (19 July 1999).<BR><BR>1 Liam Kelly, Thinking Long - Contemporary art in Northern Ireland, Gandon Editions, Kinsale, 1996.<BR>2 The Irish Times, 17 May 1971.<BR>3 Ibid.<BR>4 The Irish Press, 14 May 1971.<BR>
Auction Location:
Dublin, Ireland
Previewing Details:
Saturday & Sunday, 23 & 24 April, 10am-6pm;
Monday 25 April, 10am to 9pm;
Tuesday 26 April (day of sale) 10am to 2pm.
See terms and conditions
Additional Fees:
Shipping Details:
No Info Available
Payment Details:
No Info Available
Accepted Payment Methods:
Whyte & Sons Auctioneers Limited, trading as Whyte's, hereinafter called "the auctioneer" exercises all reasonable care to ensure that all descriptions are reliable and accurate, and that each item is genuine unless the contrary is indicated. However, the descriptions are not intended to be, are not and are not to be taken to be, statements of fact or representations of fact in relation to the lot. They are statements of the opinion of the auctioneers, and attention is particularly drawn to clause 5 set out below. Comments and opinions, which may be found in or on lots as labels, notes, lists, catalogue prices, or any other means of expression, do not constitute part of lot descriptions and are not to be taken as such unless they are made or specifically verified by the auctioneers.
<p>Clause 1 (a) Each lot is put up subject to any reserve price imposed by the vendor
(b) Subject to sub-clause (a) of this clause, the highest bidder for each lot shall be the purchaser thereof
(c) If any dispute arises as to the highest bidder the auctioneer shall have absolute discretion to determine the dispute and may put up again and re-sell the lot in respect of which the dispute arises
Clause 2 (a) The bidding and advances shall be regulated by and at the absolute discretion of the auctioneer and he shall have the right to refuse any bid or bids. NOTE: Where an agent bids, even on behalf of a disclosed client, the auctioneer nevertheless has the right at his discretion to refuse any such bid.
(b) The purchaser of each lot shall immediately on its sale, if required by the auctioneer, give him the name and address of the purchaser and pay to the auctioneer at his discretion the whole or part of the purchase money. If the purchaser of any lot fails to comply with any such requirement the auctioneer may put up again and re-sell the lot; if upon such re-sale a lower price is obtained than was obtained on the first sale the purchaser in default on the first sale shall make good the difference in price and expenses of re-sale which shall become a debt due from him.
(c) Where an agent purchases on behalf of an undisclosed client such agent shall be personally liable for payment of the purchase money to the auctioneer and for safe delivery of the lot to the said client.
Clause 3 (a) The auctioneer reserves the rights to bid on behalf of clients including vendors, but shall not be liable for errors or omissions in executing instructions to bid.
(b) The auctioneer reserves the rights, before or during a sale, to group together lots belonging to the same vendor, to split up and to withdraw any lot or lots at the auctioneer's absolute discretion and without giving any reason in any case.
(c) The auctioneer acts as agent only, and therefore shall not be liable for any default of the purchaser or vendor.
Clause 4 (a) Each lot shall be at the purchaser's risk from the fall of the hammer and shall be paid for in full before delivery and taken away at his expense within one day of the sale. The buyer will be responsible for all removal, storage and insurance charges in respect of any lot which has not been collected within one day of the date of sale. (b) If any purchaser fails to pay in full for any lot within 21 days of the date of sale such lot may at any time thereafter at the auctioneer's discretion be put up for sale by auction again or sold privately; if upon such re-sale a lower price is obtained than was obtained on the first sale the purchaser in default on the first sale shall make good the difference in price and the expenses of re-sale which shall become debt due from him. (c) Interest at 2 per cent per month and legal costs (if any) for recovery of monies due shall be payable by the purchaser on any overdue account.
Clause 5 (a) All lots are made available for inspection before each sale and each buyer, by making a bid, acknowledges that he has satisfied himself as to the physical condition, age and catalogue description of each lot (including but not restricted to whether the lot is damaged or has been repaired or restored).
(b) All lots are sold with all faults and imperfections and errors of description and the Auctioneer and its employees, servants or agents shall not be responsible for any error of description or for the condition or authenticity of any lot, save for Clause 5 (c) below. Written or verbal condition reports may be supplied by the Auctioneer on request but these are merely statements of opinion, and any error or omission in these reports may not be taken as grounds for a cancellation of sale or refund of any part of the purchase price or the cost of any repairs to the lot or lots reported on
(c) A purchaser shall be at liberty to reject any lot if he - (i) gives the auctioneer written notice of intention to question the genuineness of the lot within seven days from the date of sale; AND (ii) proves that the lot is a deliberate forgery and (iii) returns to the auctioneer within 20 days from the date of sale the lot in the same condition as it was at the time of sale; provided that the auctioneer may, at his discretion, on receiving a request in writing from the purchaser, extend for a reasonable period the time for return of the lot to enable it to be submitted to expertisation. NOTE: The onus of proving a lot to be a deliberate forgery is on the purchaser.
(d) Where a lot has been submitted to expertisation, all costs of such expertisation shall be paid by the person who retains the certificate of expertisation and item or items to which the certificate relates.
(e) Where the purchaser of a lot discharges the onus and acts in accordance with sub-clause (b) of this clause, the auctioneer shall rescind the sale and repay to the purchaser the purchase money paid by him in respect of the lot.
(f) No lot shall be rejected if, subsequent to the sale, it has been marked by an expert committee or treated by any other process unless the auctioneer's permission to subject the lot to such treatment has first been obtained in writing.
(g) Any lot listed as a "collection, range, portfolio etc." or stated to comprise or contain a collection or range of items which are not described shall be put up for sale not subject to rejection and shall be taken by the purchaser with all (if any) faults, lack of genuineness and errors of description and numbers of items in the lot, and the purchaser shall have no right to reject the lot; except that, notwithstanding the foregoing provisions of this sub-clause, where before a sale a person intending to bid at the sale gives notice in writing to, and satisfies the auctioneer that any such lot contains any item or items undescribed in the sale catalogue and that person specifically describes that item or those items in that notice, then that item or those items shall, as between the auctioneer and that person, to be taken to form part of the description of the lot. Clause 6 The respective rights and obligations of the parties shall be governed and interpreted by Irish law, and the buyer hereby submits to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Irish Courts.
<p>SPECIAL CONDITIONS
(a) The buyer shall pay the Auctioneer a commission at the rate of 15% (which includes VAT at 21% under The Margin Scheme and which is not reclaimable) of the purchase price of the first €40,000 of any one lot and 12.5% (which includes VAT at 21% under The Margin Scheme and which is not reclaimable) of the excess above €40,000.
(b) The Auctioneer or its employees, servants or agents may, on request organise packing and shipping of lots purchased or may order on the buyer's behalf third parties to pack or ship purchases. Under no circumstances does the Auctioneer accept any liability whatsoever for any loss or damage howsoever occasioned in the course of such service.
(c) The buyer authorises the Auctioneer to use any photographs or illustrations of any lot purchased for any or all purposes as the Auctioneer may require. The placing of a bid will be taken as full agreement to all the above conditions.
<p>
WHYTE & SONS AUCTIONEERS LIMITED 38 Molesworth Street, Dublin 2