The first of the festive season’s Irish art auctions kicks off on Tuesday, November 26th at 6pm when deVeres Art Auctioneers and Valuers in Dublin invite people into their Kildare Street offices for their first live auction since 2019.
“It was time to see everyone again, but I advise anyone who wants a seat to reserve one in advance – otherwise there will be just standing room,” says Rory Guthrie, director of deVeres.
Guthrie points to the good showing of paintings by Irish female artists in the auction. “About 25 per cent of the paintings are by female artists including Camille Souter, Mary Swanzy, Letitia Hamilton, Grace Henry, Anne Madden, Evie Hone, Nano Reid and Norah McGuinness,” he notes.
Guthrie also explains that paintings such as The Red Bogs by Camille Souter (€3,000-€5,000) and Dutch-born Sonja Landweer’s Winged Figure sculpture (€3,000-€5,000) are on the market for the first time.
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Camille Souter’s My Father’s Garden II (€12,000-€16,000); Norah McGuinness’s Roadside Grasses (€15,000-€20,000) and Drying Nets, Dunmore (€7,000-€10,000); and Mary Swanzy’s The Bird Catcher (€10,000-€15,000) are also striking pieces which will, no doubt, attract attention.
Interesting work at deVeres’ auction by Irish male artists include Rescued by Martin Gale (€10,000-€15,000); Donald Teskey’s Footbridge at Seapoint, 2001 ((€20,000-€30,000); and Colin Middleton’s Lagan, Lambeg (€3,000-€5,000).
Guthrie is also keen to highlight works by deceased artists, whose work often fetches high prices. These include paintings by some of the most collected of all Irish painters – Jack B Yeats, Roderic O’Conor and Louis le Brocquy.
The latter’s Head of Samuel Beckett (€100,000-€150,000), was part of a celebrated series of works, which earlier “searched for an abstract concept of humanity that went beyond the identification of physical features” and later focused on somewhat ethereal images of literary figures including James Joyce, Seamus Heaney and WB Yeats. Samuel Beckett was one of le Brocquy’s close friends, and the painting was completed two years before Beckett’s death in 1989.
Roderic O’Conor’s Breton Farmstead with Haystack (c1892), with an estimate of €180,000-€220,000, is one of three O’Conor paintings pitched at investor art collectors. At the time, O’Conor was spending quite a bit of time in Brittany in the company of painters such as Paul Gauguin, Henry Moret and Paul Sérusier – many of whom also painted “en plein air”, enjoying the Breton countryside as they worked. The O’Conor painting is one of a group which he completed during his first year in the Pont-Aven artists’ colony.
[ From the archive: Roderic O’Conor: Ireland’s great forgotten painterOpens in new window ]
Meanwhile, in Belfast, Ross’s auction of more than 140 lots of paintings, sculptures, prints and art books from the Grant Fine Art Gallery in Newcastle, Co Down, has some attractive paintings with very reasonable estimates.
The auctioneers and valuers, at 37 Montgomery Street, have been tasked with selling the residual contents of the gallery, which was run by Margaret and Gerry Grant in the seaside town under the Mourne Mountains for more than 50 years. The gallery closed in 2022.
Described by Ross’s as one of the premium galleries in Northern Ireland, the Grant Fine Art Gallery sold paintings by Colin Middleton, Jack B Yeats, Basil Bradshaw and George Campbell, to mention but a few, well-established, painters. They also exhibited European modernists such as Enzo Plazzotta and Josef Herman, and brought the works of art graduates from the Slade School and Chelsea School to Irish audiences for the first time.
This auction – which starts on November 27th and ends on December 4th – includes several interesting paintings primarily inspired by Irish and Italian landscapes and urban streetscapes. These include English painter, Len Tabner’s Hawthorne by the Roadside (£1,000-£1,200); Scottish landscape painter, George Rowlett’s Mournes & Dundrum (£1,500-£2,000); and Northern Ireland artist Hector McDonnell’s Cushendun (£150-£200). A sculpture by Dublin-born artist Catherine Delaney entitled Moore Street Pram (£1,000-£1,500), should also draw some interest.
For the second year in a row, Dublin Simon Community has launched A Community of Hope: Artists for Dublin Simon, as a pre-Christmas fundraising initiative. The auction, hosted by Gormley’s Fine Art Gallery, will include pieces by singer Imelda May; comedian Tommy Tiernan; jewellery designer Chupi Sweetman and many others.
The Art Auction was initiated in 2023 by artist John O’Donnell in response to the shocking conditions faced by many of those living on Dublin’s streets, not far from the gallery itself. Bidding runs from November 28th to December 10th and the art can be viewed at Gormley’s Art Gallery, 27 South Frederick St, Dublin 2 from November 28th to December 2nd.
Finally, Robin O’Donnell from Hibernian Antique Fairs ends the year with an antiques fair in a new venue. The Claregalway Castle Antique and Vintage Fair will go ahead this weekend, with about 20 dealers from around the country selling their wares today and tomorrow from 11am-6pm.
Deveres.ie; rosss.com; Gormleys.ie
What did it sell for?
19th century imperial ceremonial sword
Estimate: €100,000
Hammer price: €370,000
Auction house: Adam’s
O’Connell Bridge, Dublin, Jack B Yeats
Estimate: £500,000
Hammer price: £882,000 (€1.1 million)
Auction house: Christie’s
All Birds Pay Homage to the Phoenix, Eileen Agar
Estimate: £20,000-£30,000
Hammer price: £94,500 (€113,101)
Auction house: Christie’s
Mrs Evelyn St George, Sir William Orpen
Estimate: £600,000-£800,000
Hammer price: £690,000 (€825,820)
Auction house: Sotheby’s
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