Paul Henry, R.H.A., R.U.A.

Bought directly from the artist and thence by family descent

S. B. Kennedy, Paul Henry: with a catalogue of the Paintings, Drawings, Illustrations, 2007, no. 765, illus. p. 252

STRUCTURE Original canvas. There is a thin, raised line of craquelure, approximately 7cm. long in the sky above left of the peak of the mountain. There is a minor area of paint loss in the lower left corner where a sticker has fallen off. The surface is slightly dirty otherwise the work appears in good overall condition. ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT Under UV light there appear to be no signs of retouching. FRAME Held under glass in a Dutch 17th century style ebonised, ripple-moulded frame.
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Henry's A Connaught Fishing Village is a stunning painting that demonstrates the artist's skill in capturing the vitality of the western Irish landscape. Dating from circa 1930-1935, this painting is representative of an important moment in Henry's career when his personal life began to stabilize and he began using a more lively palette that differed significantly from his darker-toned works of the late 1920s. Here, the canvas exudes warmth in colour, atmosphere and tone, as the blues and whites of the mountains are expertly echoed and reflected with precise brushstrokes in the water of the foreground. It was Henry's desire to capture the essence of Ireland through the profound relationship between the Irish people and their land, and this painting exhibits his mastery at creating a scene in which the two are inseparable. His characteristic landscape composition of a two-part division between land and sky firmly establishes the evidence of human activity as an integral part of the expansive scenery. The small fishing village appears to be almost part of the landscape, with the green roofs of the low buildings blending with the pasturelands and the fishing boat with its sails full at ease on the windy bay. As is distinctive of Henry's great works, he at once offers an accurate recording of the topography with carefully considered brushwork and imbues the scene with a romanticism that pays homage to the timeless spirit of the west Ireland landscape.   

The present work was reproduced as a print by the Medici Society, London, in 1958.

We are grateful to S.B. Kennedy for his kind assistance with the cataloguing of the present work.