Fine art catalogues aren’t often prefaced by quotes from WB Yeats. But the catalogue for Sotheby’s sale of art from the collection of the Irish-American lawyer and philanthropist Brian Burns, which takes place in London this week, opens by invoking the poet’s vision of Ireland, “not as she is displayed in guide-books or history” but through “the magnificent vitality of her painters, in the glory of her passions”.
Some 100 works of art from Burns’s collection, built up over decades, will be sold, including paintings by Jack B Yeats, Roderic O’ Conor, Sir John Lavery, Sir William Orpen, Water Osborne, William Leech and Nathaniel Hone. The paintings have been on display in Chicago, Boston and Dublin prior to the London sale on November 21st.
Burns, who is based in Florida, was nominated by President Donald Trump as the US ambassador to Ireland in 2017 but had to withdraw his candidacy for health reasons.
His self-confessed aim in setting out to acquire a collection which would inform the Irish diaspora about its visual heritage – considerably less celebrated, nearly half a century ago, than its literary counterpart – was a quixotic endeavour in itself.
As the former director of Cork’s Crawford Gallery, Peter Murray, observes in an introductory catalogue essay, the Burns collection has a strong narrative element. These are paintings and sculptures which tell stories: stories about social conditions in Ireland, about individuals and families, about a changing landscape.
The Burns collection helped shape the international notion of what constitutes “Irish art”, with many of the works being displayed at high-profile exhibitions on both sides of the Atlantic. This week’s 100-lot sale also provides a suitably elevated note for Sotheby’s to end a year which has celebrated the 40th anniversary of the London auction house’s Irish operations.
A particular favourite
Jack B Yeats, brother of the aforementioned WB, was clearly a particular favourite. The sale features a whopping 15 of his works, from such large-scale oils on canvas as Misty Morning (Lot 15, €170,000-€283,000) through watercolours (Lot 6, The Card Players, €22,600-€33,900) to pen-and-ink drawings (Lot 2, Duffy's Circus, €13,600-€20,400). Unusually, there are also some images of the painter himself: a portrait by George Campbell depicts him standing on a cliff path looking out to sea (Lot 16, €22,600-€33,900) while a photograph of the artist by William MacQuitty, together with Yeats's signature and monogram, is mounted as a vintage print (Lot 42, €1,700-€2,850).
There are paintings by many of the big names one would expect as well as a number of sculptures by Rowan Gillespie, whose bronze of an Irish emigrant couple,The Settlers, was the first work of art encountered by visitors to the Burns family home in Florida (Lot 1, €17,000-€22,600), and a bronze cast from the maquette for the full-size statue of WB Yeats which stands in the centre of Sligo town (Lot 45, €11,300-€17,000).
Along with works of historic as well as artistic significance such as FJ Davis's depiction of a mid-19th century society ball at Dublin Castle (Lot 20, €226,000-€339,000), Maria Spilsbury Taylor's portrait of Henry Grattan (Lot 33, €22,600-€33,900) and Lavery's Armistice Day on Grosvenor Square, London (Lot 66, €226,000-€339,000), the sale contains a range of striking landscapes, from John Lavery's The Beach, Evening, Tangier (Lot 59, €113,000-€170,000) to Harry Kernoff's Dublin Bay from Howth (Lot 13, €22,600-€33,900).
And for a large and self-consciously outward-looking collection, there are also plenty of works which invite the viewer to partake in moments of introspection or intrigue, from Mildred Anne Butler's The Boot Boy (Lot 76, €8,000-€11,300) to William Leech's The Tea Trolley (Lot 33, €56,500-€79,500).
