Lot 51
  • 51

JAMES BRENAN, R.H.A. | Bankrupt

Estimate
40,000 - 60,000 GBP
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Description

  • James Brenan
  • Bankrupt
  • signed with monogram and dated l.l.: 87
  • oil on canvas
  • 71 by 91.5cm., 28 by 36in.

Provenance

Dillon Antiques, Dublin, 1986

Exhibited

Dublin, Royal Hibernian Academy, 1888, no.9 (at £40.00);
London, Irish Exhibition, 1888, no.64 (at £40.00) (lent by the artist);
Boston, Boston College Museum of Art, America’s Eye: Irish Paintings from the Collection of Brian P. Burns, 26 January - 19 May 1996, no.14, illustrated p.89, with tour to Dublin, Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, 19 June - 25 August 1996 and New Haven, Yale Center for British Art, 25 September 1997 - January 1998;
Washington, John F. Kennedy Center, Irish Paintings from the Collection of Brian P. Burns, 13 - 28 May 2000, illustrated p.22;
Phoenix, Phoenix Art Museum, A Century of Irish Painting: Selections from the Brian P. Burns Collection, 3 March - 29 April 2007, illustrated p.59;
Boston, McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, Rural Ireland: The Inside Story, 11 February - 3 June 2012, illustrated no.29;
New York, The Consulate General of Ireland, Eight Works from the Brian P. Burns Collection of Irish Art, Celebrating the Restoration of St Patrick's Cathedral, 7 March - 31 July 2014

Literature

Anne Crookshank and the Knight of Glin, Ireland's Painters 1600-1940, Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 2002, p.232;
Susan Moore, ‘Land of Heart’s Desire’, in Apollo, September 2009, illustrated no.3, p.64

Condition

The canvas is lined. Some occasional areas of craquelure amongst the figures and in the coat hanging on left hand wall - only visible upon close inspection. The work appears in good and stable condition overall. UV light reveals an opaque varnish. There are two small spots of retouching in the roof upper left, also a spot in the upper right and lower right corner. Two small areas to the boy seated at the desk and another small area in the floor in front of the door. Held in a gilt plaster frame, ready to hang.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Catalogue Note

As Head Master of the Cork School of Art, the Dublin born figure painter James Brenan’s specialism for topical narrative subjects, was supported by his regular salary. Between 1861 and 1890, when he was living in Cork, he exhibited regularly at Dublin’s Royal Hibernian Academy. He then moved to Dublin, becoming Head of the Metropolitan School of Art there in 1889, where continued to exhibit until 1906.   This is one of his many subject paintings where he brings before the public his concern for the state of the Irish poor, and especially their education. A slightly earlier work, focusing on literacy (formerly in Brian P. Burns Collection), is The Village Scribe showing an illiterate farming couple paying someone to write a letter for them. Incorporating symbolism within his favoured framework of socio-realist genre paintings, he frequently juxtaposed poor rural people and their possessions, to present a statement.

A schoolroom typical of county Cork is shown here, with boys left to their own devices, as if the master has just stepped out. His rudimentary desk on the far left, supports just one dog-eared book, and a small switch suggests discipline, which is actually absent. His coat hangs up behind, and his high stool seems to have been pushed aside in a hurry. Graffiti on the walls, in the manner of Sir David Wilkie, further underlines the message with its inclusion of a cartoon of the bespectacled master wielding a raised stick, close to a sailing ship, suggesting his departure. The departure of discipline, and order, is further underlined by the boys, nearly all of them barefoot and ragged, who have abandoned their reading and instead are playing marbles, arguing and maybe cheating. They are cheating the more studious boys of the chance to learn, and symbols of order and progress, in the form of three boys in less playful moods, are literally and visually peripheral. The two central protagonists seem to represent/symbolise Irish educational requirements for order and financial support (the boy in the blue jacket) and the government’s inability to respond (the boy with empty pockets). The feeling of abandonment is stressed further by torn discarded books, holes in the floorboards, the cracked and disfigured walls (where plaster is insufficient to reach the top of the gable), and the door left ajar by the absent master. The lack of proper financial support for the National school system was indeed a hotly debated topic during the nineteenth century. This was Brenan’s way of bringing a subject he cared strongly about to a wealthy, educated Dublin audience, underlined by his choice of title.

Brenan gently draws attention to a serious narrative here, in contrast to other nineteenth century artists such as Nathaniel Grogan, Henry MacManus and William Mulready, whose treatment of schoolroom scenes address the unpalatable subject of physical discipline head on. Instead Brenan portrays the pupils with care and sympathy, in line with his own experience of teaching young art students (many artists then started training in their early teens). Brenan is one of the best known and most prolific Irish artists to work in this Dutch influenced way. Other titles such as Patchwork, Words of Counsel, A Committee of Inspection (weaving, county Cork) (all Crawford Art Gallery, Cork) and Interior, with Woman Spinning reflect his concern for working women and the way their lives and marriages were arranged by men. While Notice to Quit and News from America tackled the political subjects of eviction and emigration.

Dr Claudia Kinmonth MRIA