Aloysius O'Kelly

London, Olympia, Irish Exhibition in London, 4th June - 29th October 1888, no.2.

The colours are warmer than the illustration suggests. The canvas is lined. There are some minor surface abrasions in the upper corners and bottom right corner, visible in the catalogue illustration, some areas of paint separation to the mountainous landscape in the mid ground and some scattered spots of staining and surface dirt. There are also some scattered fine lines of surface craquelure in the sky, otherwise in good overall condition. Under ultraviolet light, there are some retouchings to the aforementioned paint separation throughout the mountains, some specks of retouching in the bottom corner, some specks below the cart and a small line of retouching to her cheek. Held in a painted wood frame.
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A Load of Turf, Connemara is undoubtedly one of the artist's most important early works and its exciting remergence onto the auction market marks the first time it has been seen in public since the decade it was executed. Painted in Connemara during the early 1880s, it is one of eleven works by the artist included in the Irish Exhibition in London in 1888 and has only previously been known from a watercolour sketch entitled The Peat Cart (see fig.1).

O'Kelly moved from London to Connemara in the early 1880s in his role as a pictorial jounalist for the Illustrated London News. He was specifically engaged to focus on the plight of the Irish peasantry during the Land War which led him to depict heartfelt images such as An Eviction in the West of Ireland (fig.2, published in the Illustrated London News 19 March 1881). A Load of Turf, Connemara draws attention more specifically to the stark way of life experienced there and the equal importance of both male and female roles in everyday subsistence and farming.  Both are clothed in the traditional dress of the West, the female in her large shawl and long dress and the male in his tam o'shanter, collarless under-shirt léine ghals or léine gorm, and his bàscota, the thick light coloured jacket.

The same turf cart also features in one of O'Kelly's images for the Illustrated London News entitled The State of Ireland: Posting the Government Proclamation in Connemara (published 19 November 1881). O'Kelly's illustrations were published in consecutive editions of the Illustrated London News, and it was the collective impact of the pictures that caught the attention of Vincent Van Gogh who wrote in 1883 that, 'at present I have no less than fifty sheets about Ireland. Separately one might easily overlook them; but as soon as one sees them together, one is struck by them'. He recalls specifically having obtained 'one very beautiful sheet by O'Kelly, Irish Emigrants'  (Van Gogh as quoted by O'Sullivan, Aloysius O'Kelly, Re-Orientations, Painting, Politics and Popular Culture, exh.cat., Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, 25 November - 30 January 2000, p.35).

We are grateful to Niamh O'Sullivan for her assistance with the cataloguing of this lot.