Irish & International Art 25th April 2016 : Click Lot Title for More info & Pictures.

signed lower right & dated ‘47

watercolour

27 x 40.75cm (11 x 16in)

Provenance:

Private Collection

€15,000-25,000 (£11,718-19,531)

This very rare painting of a sporting event by Louis le Brocquy depicts a group of boys playing hurl-

ing. It was made the year after le Brocquy moved to London in late 1946. He quickly established

a substantial reputation in the British art world for his original and highly expressive paintings of

tinkers and of aspects of rural Irish life. Like The Hurlers, these relied on a novel modern style that

combined a familiarity with the work of Pablo Picasso and le Brocquy’s own instinctive sense of

sinuous line and earthy colour.

The fluid depiction of the entangled limbs and the highly expressive faces of the players convey the

complexity and skill of the game of hurling as well as their individual determination. Their bare feet

suggest that the match is being played in a remote West of Ireland landscape, possibly on a strand,

the only place where boots would not have been worn. Le Brocquy stayed in Achill and visited

Mayo extensively during the war years, where he may have seen such games. The soaked in wash

of the landscape and the bright colours of the uniforms contrasts with the lively energy of the black

ink which captures the physicality of the encounter in a direct and humorous manner.

Le Brocquy was aware of the ancient heritage of hurling, a sport that is believed to date to pre-Chris-

tian times in Ireland. Many of the artist’s subjects, especially those of the 1940s, sought to retrieve

archetypal themes from aspects of contemporary life. His major subject of the period, the tinkers,

enabled le Brocquy to connect these timeless nomadic figures with the refugees and displaced peo-

ples of modern war torn Europe. Similarly his interest in hurling may well have been sparked by

his knowledge of the Táin Bó Cualinge. He was commissioned to paint a scene of Cúchulainn and

Queen Medb, the main protagonists of the saga, for a public house in Tullamore during the Emer-

gency. Later in 1969 le Brocquy produced his acclaimed illustrations for Thomas Kinsella’s transla-

tion of The Táin, one of which depicts a figure playing hurling. In The Hurlers le Brocquy seems,

however, to be more interested in the youth and vitality of the players rather than in exploring any

epic aspects of the game. His fascination with childhood and adolescence was soon to become the

main preoccupation of his work, as evidenced by the Family paintings of the 1950s.

Dr. Róisín Kennedy

March 2016