The annual Irish art sale held by major London auction houses is now only a month away and, as usual, the work to be auctioned has begun to go on tour here and the US.
Earlier this week in the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin, Christie's showed the pictures it had collected for the auction. The company was keen to trumpet the merits of a number of works by artists such as Lavery and O'Conor which have been "discovered" during the past year.
But much more interesting were the pictures tucked away with relatively low estimates. These are often worth more attention than they receive, particularly since so many of them were painted by women. It has become a truism of art history that female practitioners are generally less highly regarded than their male equivalents. This certainly appeared to be borne out by even the most summary examination of the Christie's lots. One rather telling juxtaposition in the Shelbourne show brought two identically-sized views of Venice together. One by William Leech, lot 97 and called A Shining Palace, carries an estimate of £100,000-£150,000 for an attractive but scarcely outstanding example of this artist's style.
Meanwhile, Letitia Hamilton's shimmering Towards Il Redentore, Venice (lot 63a), replete with tones of pastel pink and blue, is expected to make only £6,000-£8,000. Both she and her sister Eva are represented by three pictures each; the latter's Mother and Child (lot 68, £3,000-£5,000) is particularly charming. There are also many less well-known but no less able women artists featured in this sale, such as Marjorie Sherlock, whose gentle interpretation of cubism, The Irish Model (lot 223), is offered for £2,500-£3,500. Who was this painter? The usually reliable Theo Snoddy makes no mention of her in his Dictionary of 20th century Irish artists, but this picture suggests she was highly accomplished and, like many other women who painted in Ireland during the last century, she was more receptive to new trends than were men.
This point is underlined in the Christie's catalogue by work from Evie Hone and Mainie Jellett being included on either side of the Sherlock. Almost her exact contemporary was Joan Jameson. There are three of her pictures in the Christie's sale, lots 83 to 85 inclusive, and they share the same freshness and engaging simplicity, even though the subjects are very different; one is a coastal scene, another a view of a country road, while the third shows a floral still life.
Their estimates vary from £1,500 to £4,000. The colouring in every case is clean and bright, as is the case in the paintings of Joan Jameson's close friend, Norah McGuinness. Five of her oils are being offered by Christie's (lots 1-4 and 6) and all, once again, are marked by the vivacity of their colours.
A portrait called The Red Settee (lot six, £6,000-£9,000), for example, dispenses a luminous glow more than substantial than its relatively small size might suggest was possible. So too does lot 4, Autumn Promenade (£12,000-£18,000), in which pure primary colour is employed in a generous but controlled manner. Lot 5, Still Life with Apples and a White Cloth, by May Guinness also merits study since it bears more than a passing resemblance to Cezanne's later work.
But, as seems to be the case throughout not just this but every auction of Irish art, the fact the painter is a woman seems to ensure the expected price is low; in this instance, £3,000-£5,000.
