PAUL HENRY, R.H.A., R.U.A. | ON ACHILL SOUND

Private Collection, Dublin;

Adams & Bonhams, Dublin, 27 May 1998, lot 43

In his foreword to An Irish Portrait, Sean O’Faolain remarked that Paul Henry was ‘always, indeed, painting the same thing; always the one thing – light caught in a flux, a moment’s dazzling miracle. His pictures are amazingly mobile with this miracle of light. He is the least static painter I know. He never repeats himself’ (S. O’Faolain, An Irish Portrait, London, 1951, pp.vii-viii). An artist who used muted tones of blues, greys and browns to demonstrate the inherent wildness of the West of Ireland and its distinctive light, Henry returned to the Irish landscape time after time, reinventing the same remote environment upon each canvas. The present work, executed in 1942-43 when Henry was no longer living full-time on the Island, is exemplary of the artist in palette and composition, including Henry’s unmistakeable cumulus clouds billowing over the distant mountains.

Described by Henry as a ‘windswept island at the back of the beyond’ (Paul Henry quoted in S.B. Kennedy, Paul Henry, National Gallery of Ireland exh. cat. 2003, p.13), Achill Island is at the mercy of the elements, surrounded on three sides by the Atlantic Ocean. Vulnerable and weather-beaten, the Island is separated from the mainland by a narrow sound, which flows protectively along the rugged County Mayo shore.

The present work richly evokes the Island’s landscape and weather and offers an honest view of the reality of life on the Island. Three quintessentially Irish thatched cottages, whitewashed and fenced in by haphazard stone walls, stand in the foreground, suggestive of the tough living conditions that Henry would have experienced during his prolonged stay there from 1910 to 1919.

Much like the writers of the Celtic Revival, Henry elevated and celebrated peasant life in Ireland, placing it and the solitude of the West at the forefront of his artistic career. As the artist stated, he wanted to capture ‘the very soul of Ireland’ (S. O’Faolain, op. cit., p.93).