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

Probably acquired from Magee Gallery, 1924, by McDonald, Bangor, Co. Down by whom gifted to a friend in 1950s;
Adams, Dublin, 24 September 2003, lot 54, where purchased by the present owner

Belfast, Pollock's Gallery, Pictures by Mr and Mrs Paul Henry, 1913, no.36;
Belfast, Magee's Gallery, Paintings by Mr and Mrs Paul Henry, 1924, no.19.

S. B. Kennedy, Paul Henry, 2007, no.357, illustrated p.166

Original canvas. One or two minor flecks of surface dirt otherwise the work appears in good original condition. Ultraviolet light reveals an opaque varnish but there appear to be no signs of retouching. Held in a gilt plaster frame.
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Incoming Tide is a significant, early work by Paul Henry that demonstrates his already advanced painting technique at this time. It is masterful in the economic handling of paint and tonal colour, with only the golden moon that rises above the horizon breaking the emptiness of the evening sky and casting a gentle light over the sea. It is a superb display of painterly restraint and highly atmospheric, recalling the influence of his teacher James McNeill Whistler.

Henry first visited Paris in 1898 when the city – ‘La Belle Epoque’ – was in the heyday of its bohemian notoriety. Arriving from Belfast, Henry immersed himself in this heady world and swiftly enrolled at the Académie Julian. Around the same time, a new art school, the Académie Carmen, was opened in Paris by the famous Whistler. Henry was a great admirer of the artist, and recalled his first fleeing encounter with him: ‘The sight of his slim, dapper figure as he came towards me filled me with awe and delight as the sight of no other living artists could have done’ (quoted in P. Henry, An Irish Portrait, 1951, p.14). Henry attended the Academie’s evening classes, and although Whistler was not always present, he left clear instructions for the Académie’s Supervisor to relay. Whistler taught that the subject ‘should be presented in a simple manner, without an attempt to obtain a thousand changes of colour that there are in reality’. This approach underpins much of Henry’s best work and is clearly visible in the present painting with the subject observed in simple, direct terms and set down harmoniously in closely modulated tones.

In 1900 Henry left Paris for London, which was a period of transition necessitated by the need to earn an income. By the end of the decade, Henry, with his wife Grace, decided to take a holiday in Ireland. They travelled to Achill Island, off the west coast of County Mayo – a journey that was to have a profound effect on the artist’s career: ‘I was as excited as a schoolboy and I had a strange feeling that this was a homecoming and not merely an adventurous journey into a strange country’ (Henry, op.cit., p.2). The rugged, mountainous island of Achill, dotted with peat stacks, white cottages and exposed to a tempestuous climate, presented Henry with an irresistible subject that captivated the artist for the rest of his career, leading to his now celebrated and distinctive oeuvre.

Incoming Tide was probably painted on Trawmore Strand at Keel, Achill. Unlike the majority of Henry’s career focusing on the landscape and local way of life, the present work is a pure seascape, the overriding concern being the aesthetic opportunities presented by the subject. Painted two years after his first holiday to Achill, it reveals the artist revelling in his new-found surroundings and enthusiastically applying, with aplomb, the artistic principles he absorbed in Paris.