82
Markey Robinson (1918-1999) DEEP SEA SAILORS, circ
Currency:EUR
Category:Everything Else / Other
Start Price:NA
Estimated At:20,000.00 - 30,000.00 EUR
Auction Date:2005 Feb 22 @ 18:00 (UTC)
Location:Ireland
Markey Robinson (1918-1999) DEEP SEA SAILORS, circa 1955 signed lower right; inscribed on reverse gouache on board 37 by 80cm., 14.5 by 31.5in. Provenance: Sold by the artist to Dr Joe Dundee, 1960; Collection James Mullen, Belfast; Sold through the Eakin Gallery, Belfast, c.1998; Private collection, Dublin Exhibited: ‘Markey: Major Exhibition of Early and Recent Paintings’, Eakin Gallery, Belfast, 1998; image selected for use in newspaper advertising of this event Literature: Michael Mulreany, Markey Robinson: Maverick Spirit, Ben Madigan Publications, Belfast, 2003, illustrated page 184 In style and subject matter this is at first glance classic Markey, typical and instantly recognisable. There is the maritime subject, a favourite for a Belfast-born painter who spent much of his life working in ships and shipyards, or cycling to local ports and fishing villages. Then there is the black-outline style, a trademark that became more frequent and distinct during this period, i.e., the mid 1950s. This look had wide variants ranging form expressionistic wildness to stained-glass precision. On the looser extreme were, for example, Fisherfolk on the Shor’ (Whyte’s, November 2004, lot 240) or Anticipation (illustrated in Markey - 30 Years at the Oriel Gallery, page 79). In Fisherfolk the outlining is brownish and blends into other colour areas. In Anticipation, similarly, line and shape are loosely intermingled. Deep Sea Sailors, by contrast, takes an almost graphic-art approach. Dark, firm outlines enclose brightly-coloured figures, garments and sails. Balance and composition are, as usual, impeccable. Markey’s mastery of pictorial design was all the more remarkable in a painter who did not dither, attacking cardboard or timber scraps with confident alla prima brushstrokes. Outlines are overpainted in one or two places (apparently to keep them uniformly thin) but otherwise the first vision is the last. Reports from such Markey confidantes as Mark Nulty and Michael Mulreany confirm that a brief sketch in thin paint, or a few brush strokes in pencil (if that) were all he needed before plunging confidently in. This is impressive enough when Markey tackled a familiar still-life or “shawlie” subject, but remarkable when, as here, he broke new ground. Markey sometimes painted religious subjects, and the stained-glass effect makes it tempting to imagine a “fishers-of-men” or similar biblical image lurking here. Equally tempting, if more ambitious, is a reading of the individual ethnic types as those artistic influences - French, Spanish, southern Mediterranean, primitive - which pulled together in the ferment of early modernism. Certainly Markey was familiar with both the ingredients and the stew. In Markey Robinson: Maverick Spirit Michael Mulreany proves that, thanks chiefly to his seaman’s card, Markey’s contact with (for example) expressionism and post-Cubist French art was early, frequent and first-hand. In his canny absorption of modernist influences Markey was way ahead of his circle, not to mention the usual suspects of Irish modernism, Mainie Jellett and Evie Hone. Mainstream art scholarship may not have noticed this fact, but Mulreany’s research confirms that is was quietly acknowledged in local newspapers as early as the 1940s. Mulreany, quoting the writer James McIntyre, reveals that both Campbell and Dillon dismissed Markey’s claims of European influence and contact as insignificant, even invented. Was there wishful (not to say envious) thinking at work when Dillon responded to a Markey comment on the Parisian scene with “Bollocks! You’ve never been further than Donaghdee Harbour in your life!”? Markey belongs in the first ranks of Irish and possibly international modernism, giving back to his forbears - Vlaminck, Utrillo and Léger - at least as much as he borrowed. He was unique in grafting northern European expressionism onto a post-Cubist paring down of shape and form. In works like Deep Sea Sailors, he added specifically Irish touches: a feel for landscape and seascape; an understanding of the sacredness of the elemental and the everyday. Paul O’Kelly, Dublin, January 2005
Auction Location:
Ireland
Previewing Details:
Saturday & Sunday, 19 & 20 February, 10am-6pm;
Monday 21 February, 10am to 9pm;
Tuesday 22 February (day of sale) 10am to 2pm.
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