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Louis le Brocquy
STUDY TOWARDS AN IMAGE OF GARCIA LORCA
Lot 20
Result:
Not Sold
Estimate:
€70,000 - €100,000
Louis le Brocquy HRHA, 1916-2012
STUDY TOWARDS AN IMAGE OF GARCIA LORCA, 1977-78
Oil on canvas, 57 1/2" x 44 3/4" (146 x 114cm), signed and dated '78 verso.
Provenance: Galerie Maeght, Paris (label verso); Collection of Antoinette and Patrick... Read more
Lot 20
Louis le Brocquy
STUDY TOWARDS AN IMAGE OF GARCIA LORCA
DVTV Click Here To View VideoSTUDY TOWARDS AN IMAGE OF GARCIA LORCA, 1977-78
Oil on canvas, 57 1/2" x 44 3/4" (146 x 114cm), signed and dated '78 verso.
Provenance: Galerie Maeght, Paris (label verso); Collection of Antoinette and Patrick... Read more
Lot 20
Louis le Brocquy
STUDY TOWARDS AN IMAGE OF GARCIA LORCA
Estimate:
€70,000 - €100,000
Louis le Brocquy HRHA, 1916-2012
STUDY TOWARDS AN IMAGE OF GARCIA LORCA, 1977-78
Oil on canvas, 57 1/2" x 44 3/4" (146 x 114cm), signed and dated '78 verso.
Provenance: Galerie Maeght, Paris (label verso); Collection of Antoinette and Patrick J. Murphy; their sale, Adams, 23 October 2019; Private Collection.
Exhibited: RDS, 'DEARC - Celebrating 150 years of the RDS Taylor Award', 2011.
Literature: 'DEARC - Celebrating 150 years of the RDS Taylor Art Award', illustrated p.30. Reference: BAC8004-B5343
'I am aware that that vision lies far from my own country, which gave birth to Yeats and Joyce. Lorca, far away, lending his Iberian temperament and his voice to the cries of his own people, echoing within his "astonished flesh". For me, an Irishman, it was curiously enough the plays of Synge which provided the key to an understanding of Lorca's fierce, lyrical world. Synge, with his ear pressed against the floorboards, passionately noting the marvelous vernacular of the Wicklow people in the room below. It was only quite recently that I was told by Mark Mortimer in Paris that Lorca knew and admired the works of John Millington Synge.'
In 1964, having reached a creative impasse, Louis le Brocquy visited the Musee de l'Homme in Paris and was struck by a display of Polynesian painted skulls, partly reconstructed with clay. He thought they were a striking way of evoking the lost human presence. In his mind they struck a chord with the Celtic cult of the head, which configured the head as a kind of magic box containing the spirit. Together with his own recent attempts at finding a different way to embody the human presence in paint, they set him on a course that was, essentially, to engage him for the rest of his life.
Echoing the antiquity of much of his sources, he first addressed the question of revivifying the spirits of the deep past. These spectral presences are conjured from, as the artist put it, a matrix of light. He looked to some Irish historical subjects, and to his own family history, attempting to capture a sense of his father as a young man, for example. Commissioned to make an aquatint of a Nobel prizewinner in 1975, he chose WB Yeats. He made several studies and realised that each partial view was somehow truer than the visual finality of a conventional portrait.
His portrait heads were "reconstructions" and then "studies towards an image of". With a certain inevitability (as a fellow Dubliner, he noted), he was drawn to try James Joyce as a subject. Yeats, Joyce and later Beckett, who he knew well personally. But he also reached further afield with a critically acclaimed series of studies of the great Spanish poet and dramatist Federico Garcia Lorca. Lorca was an attractive subject because he was in several respects an outsider in his own country. His life was cruelly ended prematurely, yet his writing came to exemplify essential aspects of Spanish identity, revitalising traditional forms of cultural expression, but with a modern sensibility. Le Brocquy said that he came to him via the work of John Millington Synge, who of course did much the same in Ireland. Le Brocquy went on to create sculptures based on Lorca's imposing forehead.
Aidan Dunne
STUDY TOWARDS AN IMAGE OF GARCIA LORCA, 1977-78
Oil on canvas, 57 1/2" x 44 3/4" (146 x 114cm), signed and dated '78 verso.
Provenance: Galerie Maeght, Paris (label verso); Collection of Antoinette and Patrick J. Murphy; their sale, Adams, 23 October 2019; Private Collection.
Exhibited: RDS, 'DEARC - Celebrating 150 years of the RDS Taylor Award', 2011.
Literature: 'DEARC - Celebrating 150 years of the RDS Taylor Art Award', illustrated p.30. Reference: BAC8004-B5343
'I am aware that that vision lies far from my own country, which gave birth to Yeats and Joyce. Lorca, far away, lending his Iberian temperament and his voice to the cries of his own people, echoing within his "astonished flesh". For me, an Irishman, it was curiously enough the plays of Synge which provided the key to an understanding of Lorca's fierce, lyrical world. Synge, with his ear pressed against the floorboards, passionately noting the marvelous vernacular of the Wicklow people in the room below. It was only quite recently that I was told by Mark Mortimer in Paris that Lorca knew and admired the works of John Millington Synge.'
In 1964, having reached a creative impasse, Louis le Brocquy visited the Musee de l'Homme in Paris and was struck by a display of Polynesian painted skulls, partly reconstructed with clay. He thought they were a striking way of evoking the lost human presence. In his mind they struck a chord with the Celtic cult of the head, which configured the head as a kind of magic box containing the spirit. Together with his own recent attempts at finding a different way to embody the human presence in paint, they set him on a course that was, essentially, to engage him for the rest of his life.
Echoing the antiquity of much of his sources, he first addressed the question of revivifying the spirits of the deep past. These spectral presences are conjured from, as the artist put it, a matrix of light. He looked to some Irish historical subjects, and to his own family history, attempting to capture a sense of his father as a young man, for example. Commissioned to make an aquatint of a Nobel prizewinner in 1975, he chose WB Yeats. He made several studies and realised that each partial view was somehow truer than the visual finality of a conventional portrait.
His portrait heads were "reconstructions" and then "studies towards an image of". With a certain inevitability (as a fellow Dubliner, he noted), he was drawn to try James Joyce as a subject. Yeats, Joyce and later Beckett, who he knew well personally. But he also reached further afield with a critically acclaimed series of studies of the great Spanish poet and dramatist Federico Garcia Lorca. Lorca was an attractive subject because he was in several respects an outsider in his own country. His life was cruelly ended prematurely, yet his writing came to exemplify essential aspects of Spanish identity, revitalising traditional forms of cultural expression, but with a modern sensibility. Le Brocquy said that he came to him via the work of John Millington Synge, who of course did much the same in Ireland. Le Brocquy went on to create sculptures based on Lorca's imposing forehead.
Aidan Dunne
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In the event of a tied bid, the preference will be given to the bid submitted first. The second bidder will receive immediate notification of being outbid.
PLEASE BID EARLY TO AVOID DISAPPOINTMENT.
In order to allow rival bidders the opportunity to respond to a late bid the following extensions will apply:
IF A BID IS RECEIVED WITHIN THE FINAL 45 SECONDS OF THE COUNTDOWN THE CLOCK WILL RESET TO 60 SECONDS.
At any point you can leave a maximum bid, representing the highest price you are prepared to pay for a particular lot. Bidding only advances when there is competition from a rival bidder. In that case the system bids on your behalf, only up to the maximum if required. All bids are relayed to you be email, along with notification if you have been outbid.
All maximum bids are confidential and not disclosed. The system will endeavor to purchase the lot for you for the least price. Bids are subject to buyer’s premium of 25% (incl vat), with no additional charges.
In the event of a tied bid, the preference will be given to the bid submitted first. The second bidder will receive immediate notification of being outbid.
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