Lot 45
  • 45

Walter Frederick Osborne

Estimate
40,000 - 60,000 GBP
bidding is closed

Description

  • Walter Frederick Osborne
  • The Loiterers
  • signed and dated l.r.: WALTER OSBORNE -/ 88; titled, signed and inscribed with the artist's address on R.H.A exhibition label to reverse
  • oil on panel
  • 36 by 25.5cm., 14 by 10in.

Provenance

Pyms Gallery, London;
Sotheby's, London, 19 November 2013, lot 84;
Private Collection

Exhibited

Dublin, Royal Hibernian Academy, 1889, no.220;
London, Pyms Gallery, The Irish Revival, 1982, no.2;
Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland, Walter Osborne, 1983, no.27, with tour to Ulster Museum, Belfast

Literature

Jeanne Sheehy, Walter Osborne, Ballycotton, 1974, no.220

Condition

The panel appears sound and the work in good overall condition, ready to hang. Ultraviolet light reveals a few small flecks of retouching in the sky and also to the trousers of the boy. Held in a gilt composite frame.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Catalogue Note

In a quiet country lane, villagers pause to converse as the day draws to a close, the last of the light falling across the road and touching upon the thatched roofs. This gentle, rural scene depicts the village of Uffington in Oxfordshire (formerly Berkshire), and is characteristic of Osborne’s oeuvre. Osborne spent much of the 1880s in rural English villages, usually in the company of other artists, taking lodgings in guesthouses when he found a suitable subject. He stayed in Uffington in the autumn of 1888 with an English artist and close friend, William Teulon Blandford Fletcher.

Loiterers displays Osborne’s plein air technique, which he developed in his student days at the Academie in Antwerp from 1881-83, and later that year in Brittany until 1884. During this time, many English artists were also working there, such as George Clausen, Stanhope Forbes and Henry Herbert La Thangue and it is likely Osborne came in to contact with them. Together, these artists rejected academic tradition and embraced plein air painting, rural subject matter and a ‘square brush’ technique, inspired by the French naturalist, Jules Bastien-Lepage.  We see these principles applied in Loiterers, although Osborne maintained his own personal ideals: as an excellent draughtsman he did not submit fully to broad brushwork; he responded to contrasts of light – against the philosophy of working in even, grey tones, and he did not laden his subjects with strong, social overtones. He also did not feel the desire to attach himself to a particular place, like many of his contemporaries, such as the village of Lorraine for Bastien-Lepage or the Cornish coast for the Newlyners.

During Osborne's time away from Dublin, he maintained active links with its artistic community, being elected an associate of the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1883 and a full member in 1886. He was a founding member of the Dublin Art Club (with parallels to the New English Art Club), and on his return to Dublin in the early 1890s was an influential teacher at the Academy Schools. William Leech remarked that Osborne taught him, ‘everything I need to know’ (quoted in A. Denson, John Hughes, Kendal, 1969, p.68). Osborne indeed played a significant role in the introduction to Dublin of European influences, embodied in such works as the present, and deservedly secured a reputation as one of the most important Irish artists of his generation.