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Harry Kernoff RHA (1900-1974) - DAVY BYRNE'S PUB, DUKE STREET, FROM THE BAILEY, DUBLIN, 1941

Currency:EUR Category:Art / General - Paintings Start Price:0.00 EUR Estimated At:30,000.00 - 35,000.00 EUR
Harry Kernoff RHA (1900-1974) - DAVY BYRNE'S PUB, DUKE STREET, FROM THE BAILEY, DUBLIN, 1941

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Auction Date:2012 Oct 01 @ 18:00 (UTC+1)
Location:Clyde Hall, Royal Dublin Society (RDS), Ballsbridge, Dublin, Dublin, ., Ireland
Harry Kernoff RHA (1900-1974) - DAVY BYRNE'S PUB, DUKE STREET, FROM THE BAILEY, DUBLIN, 1941

watercolour
signed and dated lower left beneath the bar counter; also dated within the Abbey Theatre flyer [31 May 1941] upper right
21.5 by 18.75in., 55 by 48cm.




It is fitting that Kernoff should choose Davy Byrne's on Duke Street and its neighbouring establishment, The Bailey, as the subject for a major painting. Both pubs, particularly Byrne's, were regular haunts of political and literary types; James Joyce cites both place and proprietor in Ulysses and makes reference to it also in the Dubliners. The present work is rooted in time by the flyers posted to the bar walls. On the far left wall The Gate's production of Romeo and Juliet, presented by Hilton Edwards and Mícheál MacLíammóir features, while top right the Abbey's Look at the Heffernan's!, 1941 by Brinsley MacNamara is advertised. The almost ubiquitous self-portrait shows Kernoff dressed in his trilby and glasses seated at the bar, his reflection seen in the mirror backed shelf facing him. Before him and in the foreground of the painting is the Bailey bar menu and a place setting for one.

In 2000 the National Gallery of Ireland acquired the oil (NGI 4677) based on the present watercolour for €130,000. But for the difference in medium, there are few disparities between the two works.