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82

Maurice Canning Wilks ARHA RUA (1911-1984)

Currency:EUR Category:Everything Else / Other Start Price:NA Estimated At:20,000.00 - 30,000.00 EUR
Maurice Canning Wilks ARHA RUA (1911-1984)
Maurice Canning Wilks ARHA RUA (1911-1984) CONNEMARA MAN signed lower right; titled on reverse oil on canvas 64 by 76cm., 25 by 30in. Provenance: Purchased in the late 1940s directly from the artist and given as a wedding present to a couple in Portadown Co. Antrim in whose possession it remained until 2001 This composition represents an unusual matter for Wilks who is mainly remembered as a landscapist, working in the tradition of J. H. Craig and Frank McKelvey. In the 1930s and early 1940s, however, Wilks painted a large number of figure compositions, some of which - The Seafarer, 1939 (formerly Haverty Trust, now Ulster Museum), for example - he exhibited at the RHA, the Ulster Academy of Arts and other venues. In its treatment of the subject A Connemara Man is similar to these works and, too, recalls Sean Keating, but there is also a hint of Augustus John, who influenced Wilks as a young painter. The treatment of the foreground, with its stone wall and wicker-work basket, is similar to the same area in Wilks' The Turf Gatherer, Co. Donegal, of 1945, and this therefore suggests a date of execution of c. 1940-45. The freshness of the paint in the upper part of the sky and in the figure itself (notably in the features of the face) is typical of Wilks' handling of oils, but the lower area of the sky has occasioned some over-painting which suggests that the artist may have altered the composition to some degree. Dr S.B. Kennedy, Belfast, January 2002€20000-€30000 (IR £15600-£23400 approx.)
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