Lot 101 Daniel O'Neill LANDSCAPE TYRELLA

Daniel O'Neill, 1920-1974
LANDSCAPE TYRELLA
Oil on canvas, 20" x 24" (50.8 x 61cm), signed; inscribed verso

Provenance: Sotheby's London, May 2000, no.172; Whytes, Important Irish Art, Dublin, 26 November 2007, no. 56; Private Collection.

The coastal location of Tyrella, Co. Down, adjacent to Dundrum Bay, appears in a number of Daniel ONeills paintings. In this example, a range of techniques has been deployed to describe the scene, with a smooth, homogenous sky, lit by a central, soft-focus glow, giving way to lively textural and colour contrasts. In the lower half of the painting, the breaking waves arranged in an off-kilter strip are more thickly painted, as are the flowers and vegetation seen in the foreground. Here and there, touches of red, ochre, raw umber and burnt sienna populate a largely yellow-green palette.

In comparison to ONeills more closely cropped compositions, Landscape, Tyrella conveys recession, its more expansive sense of space underscored by the distant figures visible at the shoreline. Two females subjects a mother and daughter, perhaps stroll in from the left, a warm shaft of light illuminating their path. Despite the shorthand representation and wearing of hats, it is clear that they sport the dark hair and blank expressions the artist often favoured, lending this quotidian scene a slightly uncanny air.

Belfast-born and an electrician by trade, O'Neill initially worked night shifts so that he could paint during daylight hours. Largely self-trained, and later influenced by works he encountered during a visit to Paris, he forged a distinctive and atmospheric romantic-expressionist mode of painting, with which Landscape, Tyrella is in keeping. With the support of influential gallerist Victor Waddington he exhibited his works to popular acclaim in Dublin, London and Montreal.

Dr. Susan Campbell