Sean Keating, P.R.H.A.

Oriel Gallery, Dublin;
Private collection

The sheet appears to be sound. There are artist's pinholes in each corner. There is a small surface abrasion to the left of the boat's mast by the upper edge and another small abrasion near the right side of the upper edge. Also some surface abrasions to the left arm of one of the seated figure's lower right. Surface appears slightly dirty. Otherwise the work appears to be in fair overall condition. Held in a cream painted frame with linen mount and framed under glass. Please note that this work has not been examined out of its frame
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Seán Keating was drawn to the rugged coast of the West of Ireland and was particularly enthralled by the hardy people he encountered and their resilience to the harsh way of life. Nowhere was this truer than on the Aran Islands, where he first started painting in 1914 and returned regularly until the death of his wife in 1965. Of the Aran Islands Keating wrote:

'One of the advantages of a place like Aran is that you have to look into yourself and perhaps discover that you haven’t got a self, a discovery that cannot be made too soon in the case of a painter…' (Keating 1936, quoted in, Éimear O’Connor, Seán Keating, Co. Kildare, 2013, p.113)

It is possible that On the Pier was painted during, or as a result of a painting trip to the islands in 1939 when he produced a body of work based on the fishing communities there; Keating termed this his 'Aran series'. He produced a number of significant works in oils including Pier Head Exchange (1940), The Oars (1940), The Turf Quay (1941) and The Port Authority (1942). The present work certainly shares the same compositional characteristics and similarly reveals aspects of the difficult socio-economic conditions of the time.

The present work also relates closely to an oil painting by Keating titled Patrick Lynch's Boat (sold Whyte's, Dublin, 16 September 2003, lot 71) which was purchased from the artist by Victor Waddington, before being sold to Alfred Goodwin of the Goodwin Galleries in Limerick. It is likely that the present painting was a preparatory work or indeed a version of the oil painting. There are slight differences in the formation of the figure groups, although the characters remain the same as do the boat and pier wall. The work demonstrates Keating's proficiency in watercolour as well as oil, and is a significant example of Keating’s Aran series, revealing the powerful influence that the Aran Islanders and their landscape had on his artistic career.