The international art market may be dominated by abstract, contemporary art, but Irish collectors continue, overwhelmingly, to prefer traditional representational paintings.
The cover of the catalogue for Wednesday's art auction at Adam's features Woman And Child Feeding Hens by Frank McKelvey, the Northern Ireland artist who died in 1974. The oil-on-canvas, measuring 38cm by 50cm (15ins by 19ins) is estimated at €10,000-€15,000. The artist, who lived in a cottage at Maze, Co Down, kept a flock of hens which he depicted in many of his paintings.
There are two other oils by McKelvey: Children Playing by a River (€6,000-€8,000); and Harvesting at Newry (€3,000-€5,000); and a watercolour, The Bathers (€1,000-€1,500). Adam's always has a strong selection of work by Northern Ireland artists and there are also paintings by Basil Blackshaw, Gerard Dillon, Daniel O'Neill and Colin Middleton.
Traditional paintings Among the many other very traditional paintings in the sale are : Ballinasloe Fair by Cecil Maguire (€7,000-€10,000); The Bog at Derravaragh, Co Westmeath by Erskine Nicol (€5,000-€7,000) and, A Connemara Harbour by Maurice MacGonigal (€4,000-€6,000).
Victorian maritime paintings include Boating off Dún Laoghaire Pier by Edwin Hayes (€4,000-€6,000) and Pollock Fishing off Roundstone Bay, Connemara by Thomas Rose Miles (€3,000-€5,000).
The best of the contemporary art is also the very antithesis of abstract: two photo-realist paintings of lighthouses by John Doherty – Rock Island Light, Co Cork and Sheep's Head Light, Co Cork – each estimated at €6,000-€8,000.
The highest-priced lot – a 1936 painting by Jack B Yeats titled Hearing the Nightingale, which last sold at auction 40 years ago, is estimated at €25,000-€35,000.
Irish women artists are represented by Letitia Hamilton whose Canal, Venice is €4,000-€6,000; her sister Eva Hamilton's View From the Square At Monasterevin [Co Kildare] is (€2,500-€3,500); and, a painting titled Boy With Dog (€500-€800) by Beatrice Salkeld – a minor artist in mid-20th century Dublin, better remembered as the wife of writer Brenda Behan.
Charcoal and chalk drawings by Sean Keating, dating probably from the late 1960s, include Study of Four Men, in Disucssion (€4,000-€6,000).
The sale, described by David Britton of Adam's as "a good cross-section of Irish art", is on view from 2pm tomorrow, Sunday, March 29th at 26 St Stephen's Green, Dublin, where the sale takes place on Wednesday, April 1st at 6pm.
