- 111
Louis le Brocquy, H.R.H.A. b.1916
Estimate
10,000 - 15,000 GBP
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Description
- Louis le Brocquy, H.R.H.A.
- torso, f.39
- signed l.l.: LE BROCQUY
- oil on canvas
- 30.5 by 25.5cm.; 12 by 10in.
Provenance
Gimpel Fils Gallery, London, whence purchased by the present owner, November 1959
Exhibited
London, Gimpel Fils Gallery, Louis le Brocquy, November 1959, no.30;
Reno, University of Nevada and tour sponsored by the Western Association of Art Museums to Oregon, Warrensburg, Palm Springs, Pocatello, Memphis, Omaha, Billings, Tacoma, Medford, Edmonton, Bozeman, Yakima Valley and Redlands, The Collection of Esther & Robert Robles, February 1968 - May 1970, no.20.
Reno, University of Nevada and tour sponsored by the Western Association of Art Museums to Oregon, Warrensburg, Palm Springs, Pocatello, Memphis, Omaha, Billings, Tacoma, Medford, Edmonton, Bozeman, Yakima Valley and Redlands, The Collection of Esther & Robert Robles, February 1968 - May 1970, no.20.
Catalogue Note
Executed in 1959, the year after le Brocquy married the artist Anne Madden at Chartres Cathedral. During this time, she was undergoing dramatic surgery on her spine and her fragile state both raised his awareness of the human condition and also prompted him to explore ideas concerning the fundatmental nature of human existence and the dichotomies of life and death, being and non-being. The present work strongly relates to one of his first explorations of this theme, Young Woman (Anne), (1957, Private Collection) where the female form has been reduced to a shadowy presence whose only tangible reference is her spine running along the central vertical axis of the composition.