Beschreibung:

Artist: Paul Henry RHA (1876-1958) Title: Maam Valley, Connemara (1942) Signature: signed lower left; with faint inscription [Lady Mrs Power Conn? Glen?" and framing instructions] in pencil on reverse; with label of C.D. Soar & Son [Kensington] also on reverse" Medium: oil on canvas laid on board Size: 29.30 x 34.30cm (11.5 x 13.5in) Framed Size: 51.3 x 56.4cm (20.2 x 22.2in) Provenance: Artist's studio until 1956; Collection of P. R. Jennings, Esq.; Adam's & Bonhams, Dublin, 8 December 2004, lot 162; Private Collection; Whyte's, Dublin, 21 May 2012, lot 79; Private Collection; Whyte's, Dublin, 25th May 2015, lot 18; Private Collection Exhibited: Paintings by Paul Henry R.H.A.', Combridge's Gallery, Dublin, 23 October- 6 November 1945, catalogue no. 5; 'Pictures by Paul Henry RHA', Heal & Son, Tottenham Court Road, London, from 14 January 1946, no. 3; 'Paintings and Charcoals: Paul Henry RHA', Waddington Galleries, Dublin, 21 February - 3 March 1952 (no. 3, as The Maam Valley); RHA, Annual Exhibition, Dublin, Spring 1953, no. 28; 'Paintings and Drawings by Paul Henry', The Studio, Sidmonton Square, Bray, until 8 November 1956, no. 12 (probably acquired by P. R. Jennings); 'Paul Henry: Retrospective Exhibition', Ritchie Hendriks Gallery, St. Stephen's Green, Dublin, and Belfast Museum & Art Gallery, Belfast, May-July 1957, no. 58 (Lent by P. R. Jennings) Literature: Stewart, Anne M. (ed.), Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts: Index of Exhibitors and their Works 1826-1979, Dublin, Manton Publishing, 1985, vol. 2, p.82; Kennedy, S. B., Paul Henry New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 2000, p.135; Paul Henry with a catalogue of the Paintings, Drawings, Illustrations, Yale, 2007, catalogue no. 1035, p.303 (illustrated) a#morebtn { color: #de1d01; } a#morebtn:hover { cursor: pointer;} Scoured by massive glaciers during the Ice Age, the mountains of Connemara, including the Maamturks and the Twelve Bens, have distinctive rounded profiles and relatively few jagged peaks. Those same glaciers shaped the wide valley that leads from Maam Cross to just south of Leenane village. Through ... Read more Scoured by massive glaciers during the Ice Age, the mountains of Connemara, including the Maamturks and the Twelve Bens, have distinctive rounded profiles and relatively few jagged peaks. Those same glaciers shaped the wide valley that leads from Maam Cross to just south of Leenane village. Through the Maam Valley flows the Joyce river, that runs into the Bealanabreac river, which in turn is joined by the Failmore. In the summer of 1942, landscape painter Paul Henry set up his easel close to Teernakill Bridge, where the Failmore meanders east as it flows into the Bealanabreac, and then into Lough Corrib. The location is well-known today as being close to the “Quiet Man” cottage, one of the settings for the film directed by John Ford, ten years after Henry painted this scene. Using a subdued palette of mainly greys and greens, Henry captures the remote beauty of the Maamturk mountains, with river and stacks of turf in the foreground. The subtlety of his colour sense, which was not limited by his colour blindness, is evident in the slight pink tinge of the mountain sides and in the faint patches of blue in the cloudy skies. By the time he painted Maam Valley, Henry had been depicting Connemara scenes for many years. Although born and raised in Belfast, and trained in London and Paris, he had moved to Achill Island in 1910. Initially depicting local people as they farmed and fished in Connemara and Mayo, after he was employed in 1917-18 to administer payments by the Congested District Board, he began to increasingly focus on landscape. In 1925, his painting Connemara was used as an advertising poster for the London, Midland and Scottish railways and by the following decade his views of the West of Ireland were considered to embody the