Beschreibung:

Artist: Harry Aaron Kernoff RHA (1900-1974) Title: Madonna with Fawn and Doves Signature: signed with initials lower left Medium: oil on canvas laid on board Size: 125 x 103cm (49.2 x 40.6in) Framed Size: 146.5 x 124.5cm (57.7 x 49in) Provenance: Private Collection Literature: Kevin O'Connor 'Harry Kernoff, The Little Genius', 2012 - illustrated on 2nd plate after p.56 a#morebtn { color: #de1d01; } a#morebtn:hover { cursor: pointer;} Although most of Kernoff's art depicts ordinary everyday scenes, he occasionally produced allegorical or religious works, such as Madonna with Faun and Dove. This elaborate painting sums up Kernoff's ability to combine the secular and the sacred. As with his Byzantine Madonna, the composition is ins... Read more Harry Aaron Kernoff Lot 36 - 'Madonna with Fawn and Doves' Estimate: €20,000 - €30,000 Although most of Kernoff's art depicts ordinary everyday scenes, he occasionally produced allegorical or religious works, such as Madonna with Faun and Dove. This elaborate painting sums up Kernoff's ability to combine the secular and the sacred. As with his Byzantine Madonna, the composition is inspired by religious icons. Seated on a stylised throne and surrounded by plants and animals, the Madonna embraces a child, who holds a palm frond. In the background can be seen a formal terrace, with the moon rising over a dark blue sea. The woman who modelled for this painting was a friend of Kernoff's, the actor, theatre director and designer known as Daisy "Toto" Cogley. Born Jeanne Marie Desirée Bannard in Paris in 1884, Toto Cogley had studied at the Sorbonne and worked in touring theatre companies, before marrying the Irish journalist Fred Cogley in Santiago, Chile, in 1919. Settling in Ireland (her mother Mary Furlong was from Co. Wexford), Cogley helped set up the Wexford Opera Society, and was active in theatre. A committed Republican, she was involved in the War of Independence and was interned during the Civil War. In the late 1920s, she joined the socialist Radical Club, becoming a friend of Harry Kernoff, who painted several portraits of her. Around 1930, Cogley initiated the Cabaret Club, which attracted loyal audiences including Samuel Beckett Although the increasingly repressive atmosphere of De Valera's Ireland led her to move to London for a few years, where she ran a cabaret in Hampstead, she returned to Ireland during WWII, and worked again in theatre in the post-war years. Cogley was a co-founder of the Gate Theatre and worked to ensure its survival until her death in the 1965. While serving an apprenticeship with his father, a cabinet-maker, Kernoff also attended evening classes at the Metropolitan School of Art, along with his brother Hyman. In 1923, a Taylor Scholarship enabled him to visit Paris, and to become a full time student at the Metropolitan School, where his teachers included Sean Keating, Patrick Tuohy and Harry Clarke In 1926, Kernoff's first exhibition was held, at the Society of Dublin Painters, and over the following years he showed frequently with the Dublin Painters, as well as participating in exhibitions in Ireland and abroad; his work being shown in London, Paris, Chicago and other cities. From 1926 onwards, for almost five decades, he exhibited annually at the RHA, and he also had two solo shows with the Victor Waddington Galleries. In 1939 he travelled to New York, to paint a mural for the Irish pavilion at the World's Fair. In addition to painting everyday street scenes, allegorical works and portraits, Kernoff produced many woodcut prints, and contributed to publications such as James Stephens The Crock of Gold and the Broadsides of the Cuala Press. Peter Murray, September 2023