Galway art sale by new auction house

A new art auction house in Galway is to hold its first sale at the Courtyard Marriott Hotel in Headford Point in the city on Monday at 6.30pm.

Auctioneer Niall Dolan, formerly of the Suffolk Gallery in Dublin, says that with so few art sales being held outside Dublin there is a gap in the market west of the Shannon.

He proposes to hold quarterly auctions, specialising in 19th and 20th century Irish art.

Monday's sale includes over 200 lots of painting and sculpture, including a watercolour, West of Ireland Cottage (9.5ins by 12ins) by Gerald Dillon RHA (1916-1971), very similar to an oil painting by Dillon which hangs in the Great Southern Hotel in Eyre Square, Galway. It has a pre-sale estimate of €18,000-€25,000.

The highest estimate of the sale (€50,000-€80,000) is for a 1979 oil painting, Spilt Roses, 24ins by 37ins, by the Cork-born artist Patrick Hennessy RHA (1915-1980), last sold at the artist's studio sale in Christie's in 1986.

Another large oil, Mysterious House (Co Wicklow), 1961, by Ernest Hayes RHA (1914-1978), is estimated at €8,000-€12,000 and four canvasses by Kenneth Webb RUA include The Long Walk, Galway, 15ins by 36ins (€12,000-€15,000).

The Dublin painter, Patrick Leonard HRHA (1918-2005), whose studio sale took place last month at Adam's, is represented by four works, including a pastel, Doreen and Hilary near Rush, June 1949, 21.5ins by 29.5ins (€7,000-€8,000). Doreen and Hilary are the artist's wife and daughter.

Sculptor John Behan RHA is represented by two works, Emigrants on Deck, bronze, 6ins by 20ins, no 2 in an edition of 9 (€2,000-€3,000) and Columbarium, welded copper, 21ins (€4,000-€5,000).

Viewing is today and tomorrow at the Marriott Hotel from 10am to 7pm, and on Monday from 10am to 3pm.