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Paul Henry RHA (1876-1958) THE FLOCK, 1910

Currency:EUR Category:Antiques / Other Start Price:NA Estimated At:10,000.00 - 15,000.00 EUR
Paul Henry RHA (1876-1958) THE FLOCK, 1910
<B>Paul Henry RHA (1876-1958)</B><BR>THE FLOCK, 1910<BR>signed lower right; inscribed on reverse with the artist's address "Beaufort Cottage, Knapp Hill, Surrey"<BR>charcoal on paper<BR>22 by 28cm., 8.5 by 11in.<BR>Provenance:<BR>Taylor de Vere's, Dublin, 12 October 1993, lot 25, as Driving Home the Sheep, reproduced in the catalogue; Whence purchased by the father of the present owner Exhibited: RHA, Dublin, Spring 1910, catalogue no. 367 (12 guineas) Literature: S. B. Kennedy, Paul Henry, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2000, page 40 The Flock admirably illustrates all these qualities. Made in the early spring of 1910, before he visited Achill Island, it was almost certainly intended for that year's Royal Hibernian Academy show. Priced at twelve guineas Henry clearly regarded it as a finished drawing and not merely a study for a later work. In his Further Reminiscences (published posthumously in 1973) he related how he had come to first exhibit at the RHA. In about 1908, he said, in London, he had met Hugh (later Sir) Lane who mentioned his name to Dermod O'Brien, a prominent member of the Academy. O'Brien subsequently wrote to him, saying that Lane had been greatly impressed by his work which he thought "would be appreciated in Dublin" (in Ireland Henry's work had previously been seen only in Belfast). Lane had also suggested that he might even have a wall to himself at the RHA exhibition (Further Reminiscences, page 64). In the event he submitted just two drawings, The West Wind, 1908, and The Flock, 1910, the former being one of the drawings that had so impressed Hugh Lane.* In The Flock we see Henry at the height of his powers. The scene is almost certainly in Surrey and while the shepherd and his flock of sheep are the ostensible subject of the picture, in fact the landscape holds our attention. The overall mood is determined by the closely woven 'Whistlerish' tones which bind everything together and in the treatment of the open ground, with little to interest us except the gentle rise of the track trodden by the sheep, which leads on to the distant hill, and the almost theatricality of the clouds which seem to peer over the horizon, we see Henry's ability to dazzle us with the mastery of his technical prowess. * The West Wind was sold at Whyte's, Dublin, 'Important Irish Art', 26 April 2005, lot 51, reproduced in the catalogue. Belfast, August 2005
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