LEO WHELAN, R.H.A. | The Artist's Niece Lena

Family of the Artist;
Gorry Gallery, Dublin  

Boston, Boston College Museum of Art, America’s Eye: Irish Paintings from the Collection of Brian P. Burns, 26 January - 19 May 1996, no.12, illustrated p.87, 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 - 4 January 1998

The panel appears to be sound and the work in good overall condition. Minor frame abrasion to extreme lower right edge. UV light reveals opaque varnish. There are two spots of retouching near the upper right corner, another small area to the centre of the lower edge and a few spots near the table in the centre of the left edge. Held in an ebony composite frame.
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Although depicting the artist's niece and painted circa 1940 at the Whelan family home in Dublin, the feeling achieved is clearly of domestic life in a rural cottage at the end of the 19th century. In a sparse room, a young woman sews beside a table placed in front of a fireplace. The earthy tones emphasise the rural setting, while the composition and use of light also reveals the artist's interest in the early Dutch genre masters. Whelan studied at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art under William Orpen whose influence can be seen in the free, lively brushwork that cleverly evokes different textural surfaces. Aside from such genre scenes, Whelan became one of the leading portraitists of the age.