Lavery’s breezy golf scene among Irish art for sale in London

Some major paintings by Irish artists are due to be auctioned this week in London.

On Wednesday (November 23rd) Bonhams Modern British & Irish Art auction starting at 3pm in the New Bond Street saleroom will offer a selection of Irish art led by Water Front, a painting by Jack B Yeats, unseen in public for more than 50 years, and estimated at £150,000-£200,000 (€175,000- €232,000). The oil-on-canvas measuring 36cm by 53cm, was painted in 1947, and depicts three men standing beside a west of Ireland quayside which, according to Bonhams, "evokes the world of work and commerce with which Yeats was familiar from his childhood. He spent his early years living with his grandparents in Sligo where the family ran a shipping business". The auction also includes two other paintings by Jack B Yeats: A Soldier of Fortune dating from 1948 (£50,000-£80,000); and Fresh and Salt dating from 1944 (£30,000-£50,000); Killary Bay by Paul Henry (£30,000-£50,000); and Nude, Bathing by Roderic O'Conor (£50,000-£80,000).

Lavery

On Wednesday (November 23rd) Christie's Modern British & Irish Art evening auction, starting at 6pm in the King Street saleroom, includes A Windy Day by Sir John Lavery with an estimate of £500,000-£800,000 (€350,000-€580,000). The oil-on-canvas, measuring 76cm by 64cm, was painted circa 1908 during one of the artist's regular visits to Tangier, the then fashionable Moroccan resort and depicts a woman walking with her Jack Russell on the beach. The painting last changed hands in 2008 when it appeared in The Irish Sale at Sotheby's in London and sold for £468,500.

Meanwhile, Sir John Lavery the Belfast-born artist who spent some years in Glasgow, has also turned up in Sotheby's annual Scottish Art auction on Tuesday (November 22nd) in the New Bond Street saleroom where his painting The Golf Links, North Berwick is estimated at £300,000-£500,000. The oil-on-canvas measuring 64cm by 76cm, dating from 1921 and once owned by Lavery's dentist, Conrad Ackner, depicts the famous golf course located some 40km from Edinburgh.