Auction Date:2011 May 30 @ 18:00 (UTC+1)
Location:Royal Dublin Society, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, Dublin, ., Ireland
Daniel O'Neill (1920-1974)
NUDE
oil on board
signed upper right; with typed Solomon Gallery label on reverse; with partial stamp on reverse
51 by 61cm., 20 by 24in.
Provenance:The Solomon Gallery, Dublin; Adam's & Bonhams, 12 April 2007, lot 122; Private collection
Nude recalls immediately the French modernist tradition in art and to some extent the pose of Manet's provocative masterpiece Olympia (1863). Early in his career O'Neill had worked for a short time in the studio of Sidney Smith, who, together with Gerard Dillon, introduced him to French art, inter alia Rouault, Cézanne and Picasso. He also visited Paris for the first time c. 1948/49. O'Neill's reclining nude nonchalantly and with a tear in her eye is 'unwrapped' as it were to confront the viewer. Everything conspires towards an erotic, if somewhat sentimental charge - the sensuous drapes; the revealed nudity; the rich colours and impasto. John Hewitt, who regarded O'Neill highly, described him as “...a brooding painter”, he suggests rather than states his passionate strength in a severely limited range of colours'. O'Neill often relied on dark yellows, blues and greens to support a visionary quality in his work. The 1940s was something of a decas mirabilis for the artist culminating in 1952 in a very successful exhibition at the CEMA Gallery, Belfast and which Ken Jamison would claim had significant influence on a younger generation of artists - the influence more of 'attitude than of style'. During this productive period O'Neill painted a series of nude works such as Susanna and the Elders (1949); Artist's Model (c.1948/49) and The Blue Skirt (1949). Nude could well belong to this period. It has the more characteristic and sombre colour range of this earlier phase before his later brighter paintings which could verge on sweetness at times. All these paintings incorporate the female archetype in differing reclining and seated positions. Artist's Model shows the artist at his easel painting a reclining nude with curiously another women (muse?) looking on, while a seated nude is the subject of the male gaze in Susanna and the Elders. Although it more languid and less Picasso-like, Nude also recalls The Blue Skirt (Ulster Museum) which Ken Jamison would describe as 'A kind of Northern odalisque, this half-nude reclining figure seemed to belong to the great European tradition and yet something excitingly new'.Professor Liam KellyBelfast, May 2011
Auction Location:
Royal Dublin Society, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, Dublin, ., Ireland
Previewing Details:
The Clyde Rooms, Royal Dublin Society,
Anglesea Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4
Saturday 28 May 10am to 6pm
Sunday 29 May 10am to 6pm
Monday 30 May 10am to 6pm
Guided tours of the exhibition will take place at 3pm on Saturday and Sunday, 28 and 29 May
Buyer's Premiums:
| From (Incl.) | To (Excl.) | Premium |
| 0.00 |
Infinite |
20% |
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