Although he died at the young age of 54, the Irish artist Edward McGuire achieved notable success, especially in portraiture, where he painted no less than 25 portraits of poets and writers. The late Dorothy Walker, who was Ireland’s leading authority on contemporary painting, described his work as “an astonishing specialisation” and “hard to think of a similar body of work in western art history”.
Some of these portraits, which have been part of the collection of Patrick MacEntee SC, will go under the hammer at Adam’s Important Irish Art sale on March 1st. Aidan Dunne, in catalogue notes, says that the renowned defence barrister was, for a significant period, “one of a small number of committed supporters of the artist”, who died so young.
Eight works by McGuire, portraying Patrick Collins, Seán MacBride (of which there are three), Sydney Bernard Smith, Paul Durcan and John Jordan, are listed alongside Dead Cat, which is a portrait of a mummified feline the artist found on an old dairy farm in Co Wicklow. The portrait is reminiscent of the famous remains of the cat and rat caught in the organ of Christ Church Cathedral, ever immortalised in James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. McGuire was also renowned for his paintings of dead game birds, and when asked why he painted so many pictures of dead fowl, his reply was “because they stay still”. A portrait of the art critic Brian Fallon, who once described McGuire as “possibly the finest portrait painter of his generation, and was possibly the finest portrait painter since John Butler Yeats”, also forms part of the sale.
Born in Dublin in 1932, he first used the name Edward Augustine as his father and namesake also painted, but soon changed it to Edward McGuire due to sudden acclaim for his work. His education included the study of art history in Florence in 1952 followed by Rome in 1953 and the Slade School in London in 1954. This is where McGuire met Lucian Freud, who became a lifelong influence. While Freud tutored at Slade, he apparently told McGuire he had little to learn from the place and advised him to ply his trade, which he duly did. Estimates range from €400-€500 for a pencil sketch of Seán MacBride, to €8,000-€12,000 for the large oil on board of the late politician and Nobel Peace Prize recipient.
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Other works in MacEntee’s collection are three superb full-sized cartoons (full-sized drawings for stained glass) by Harry Clarke. Included are a pair of designs for a window at Church of the Assumption, Bride Street, Wexford. Catalogue notes outline that this memorial window (commissioned by Matilda and William O’Keefe of Wexford in memory of their second son, who was killed in the first World War) represents “one of a very small number in Catholic churches to soldiers who fell in WWI compared to a significant amount in Protestant churches” (€30,000-€50,000).
From the same period is a single lancet window Clarke designed for the Church of Ireland in Killiney. The Angel of Peace and Hope window is also known as the Lloyd Memorial, as it was commissioned in memory of local solicitor Clifford Lloyd, who lived at Victoria Castle (€20,000-€30,000).
Top of the bill is a quintessential work by Paul Henry, Cottages by the Lake, Outer Killary, Connemara, from 1933. Estimated at €120,000-€150,000 the painting, which was last on the market in 1977, depicts his signature bulbous clouds over thatched cottages and stacked turf. Despite its title suggesting its location to be Killary near Leenane in Connemara, the late art historian Dr SB Kennedy suggested the work is possibly a scene from Co Kerry, as the title was handwritten but not by Henry, and its period of execution is consistent with Henry’s time in the southwest.
What may also pique interest are four works by Louis le Brocquy, who remains one of the most highly regarded Irish-born artists of the second half of the 20th century. Head, from his ground-breaking eponymous series, which the artist said “can be regarded ambivalently as a box which holds the spirit prisoner”, is listed at €30,000-€50,000, while Ancestral Head from 1990, a watercolour, is seeking €12,000-€16,000. Two lesser works – Landscape, a watercolour, and Study towards an image of Samuel Beckett, a lithograph, are listed at €3,000-€5,000 and €1,500-€2,000 respectively.
Along with works by Jack Butler Yeats, Nathaniel Hone, Daniel O’Neill, Walter Osborne and Colin Middleton are two works by William Scott. Still Life no 2, which is the larger of the two gouaches, is listed at €30,000-€40,000, while Still Life Forms, which is registered in the William Scott Archive from 1969, is seeking €20,000-€30,000. It was announced this week that the Anita Rogers Galley of Contemporary Art in New York will hold an exhibition on works, correspondence and friendship between Mark Rothko and William Scott in May.
