LOT Whyte's  /  Exceptional Irish Art  / 

54

Seán Keating PRHA HRA HRSA (1889-1977)

Currency:EUR Category:Everything Else / Other Start Price:NA Estimated At:40,000.00 - 60,000.00 EUR
Seán Keating PRHA HRA HRSA (1889-1977)
Seán Keating PRHA HRA HRSA (1889-1977) FISHERMEN WITH CURRACHS, INIS OíRR oil on canvas 52 by 65cm., 20.5 by 25.5in. The Aran Islands, set jewel-like into the Atlantic ocean to the far west of Ireland, have long been popular with writers, playwrights and artists and with the Irish imagination. When Seán Keating first visited Aran in the summer of 1914, he was encouraged and accompanied by his friend and fellow artist, Harry Clarke. That summer there were rumblings of war across Europe and the streets of Dublin were alive with Nationalist politics. Although politically aware, Keating disliked noisy, busy cities and rarely painted them; the calm emblematic beauty of the people and landscape of Aran Islands presented something new and very necessary to his artistic sensibilities. Keating returned to Aran for over forty years and he identified so closely with the islands that he frequently presented himself in portraits dressed in the native críos and bánín. Always interested in languages, Keating was proud to add Aran Irish to his knowledge of French and Latin. Throughout the history of western art there has been a fascination among artists with new and experimental ways of looking and seeing. Keating became interested in photography very early in his career and in the late 1930s he purchased a cine camera that he brought to the Aran Islands. In this way, and through an ever-enlarging collection of sketches, postcards and magazine and newspaper cut-outs, he built up a repertoire of images to which he could refer when necessary. Fishermen with Currachs, Inis Oírr is a painting of Aran boatmen that directly refers to, and is likely a preliminary sketch for Men of Aran – An Trá, Inis Oírr (James Adam Salerooms, Dublin, 23 March 2005, lot 40). Although the boat-house, background fishermen and currachs are not present in this smaller image, the foreground figures are so consistently akin to Men of Aran – An Trá, Inis Oírr that it is not implausible to consider that the artist was working initially from a photograph or piece of cine film in order to set up the composition before painting the larger picture. The absence of signature or initial is not unusual and gives credence to the suggestion that this was a ‘working’ image of the larger painting he was planning. There are a number of interesting elements about Fishermen with Currachs. The omission of boathouse and other figures renders the personalities of the fishermen, each involved in personal thought, more legible. While it can be difficult to date Keating’s paintings of Aran, it is notable in this instance that the men sit with their back to the calm sea with no sign of wind. The veracity of Keating’s image is startling, particularly in consideration of the collapse of the mackerel market on Aran in the mid 1930s. Éimear O’Connor The Humanities Institute of Ireland University College Dublin
Sign In to Bookmark Lot