seamus dubhghaill

Promoting Irish Culture and History from Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

Tag Archives: Grace Henry


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Birth of Artist Paul Henry

Paul Henry, Irish artist noted for depicting the Connacht province landscape in the west of Ireland in a spare Post-Impressionist style, is born at 61 University Road, Belfast, on April 11, 1876.

Henry is the third of four sons of the Rev. Robert Mitchell Henry, minister of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, and his wife Kate Ann Berry, eldest of four daughters of Thomas Berry, minister of the Baptist church, Athlone. His father becomes a Baptist in 1858 and pastor of Great Victoria Street Baptist Church, Belfast, resigning in 1875 to join the Plymouth Brethren.

Henry begins to draw in pencil and watercolours at the age of four, even before entering the kindergarten at Methodist College Belfast (MCB), in 1882 where he first begins drawing regularly. At the age of fifteen he moves to the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. He studies art at the Belfast School of Art before going to Paris in 1898 to study at the Académie Julian and at James McNeill Whistler‘s Académie Carmen.

Henry marries the painter Emily Grace Mitchell on September 17, 1903, in London at St Peter’s Anglican church, Bayswater. He returns to Ireland in 1910. From then until 1919 he lives on Achill Island, where he learns to capture the peculiar interplay of light and landscape specific to the west of Ireland. In 1919, he moves to Dublin and in 1920 he is one of the founders of the Society of Dublin Painters, originally a group of ten artists. He designs several railway posters, some of which, notably Connemara Landscape, achieves considerable sales. He separates from his wife in 1929. His second wife is the artist Mabel Young.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Henry is Ireland’s best-known artist, one who has a considerable influence on the popular image of the west of Ireland. Although he seems to cease experimenting with his technique after leaving Achill and his range is limited, he creates a large body of fine images whose familiarity is a testament to its influence.

Henry’s use of colour is affected by his red-green colour blindness. He loses his sight in 1945 and does not regain his vision before his death.

Henry dies on August 24, 1958, at his home at 1 Sidmonton Square, Bray, County Wicklow, and is buried at St. Patrick’s Church, Enniskerry, County Wicklow. He is survived by his wife, Mabel. His papers and sketchbooks are in the libraries of the National Gallery of Ireland and Trinity College Dublin.

A commemorative exhibition of Henry’s work is held at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1973 and the National Gallery of Ireland holds a major exhibition of his work in 2004.

A painting by Henry is featured on an episode of the BBC‘s Antiques Roadshow, broadcast on November 12, 2006. The painting is given a value of approximately £40,000–60,000 by the Roadshow. However, due to the buoyancy of the Irish art market at the time, it sells for €260,000 on December 5, 2006, in James Adams’ and Bonhams’ joint Important Irish Art sale.

Pictured: “Roadside Cottages, below Mweelrea Mountain” by Paul Henry, RHA, oil on panel, 1940)


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First Exhibition of the Society of Dublin Painters

The first exhibition of the Society of Dublin Painters or Dublin Painters Group takes place at its premises at 7 St. Stephen’s Green on August 5, 1920. The Society is formed to promote Irish modern art.

The Society of Dublin Painters is founded in 1920 by Paul and Grace Henry, Mary Swanzy, Letitia Marion Hamilton, Jack B. Yeats, and Harry Clarke. As the original meeting notes have been lost, there is some uncertainty as to which artists are there at the inaugural meeting. Along with these potential founding members, Clare Marsh, E.M. O’Rorke Dickey, and James Sleator are featured in the first exhibition. The Society’s first exhibition runs until September 1 and attracts good reviews. Yeats, Marsh, and Paul Henry are all signatories to the lease of this premises. The group seeks to bring modernism to Ireland, and provide a freer, less academic space for artistic expression and experimentation less focused on accuracy and realism. Its foundation is seen as providing an alternative public exhibition space to the more conservative Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA), which does not favour exhibiting Irish modern art. At its 1923 exhibition, Mary Swanzy exhibits one of her earliest cubist paintings, Decoration. The membership always has a large proportion of women.

The Society holds annual exhibitions and one-person shows at its premises on St. Stephen’s Green. Unlike the Royal Hibernian Academy, the Society does not mandate a particular style of painting for inclusion in its exhibitions, with the only limitation on the number of paintings an artist can submit. The members are free to submit paintings to other exhibitions such as the Royal Hibernian Academy, The White Stag Group and Irish Exhibition of Living Art. Membership is limited, with just ten members initially, rising to twelve in 1932, and eighteen in 1934 owing to limited exhibition and studio space. By 1943, the Society is being overtaken by exhibitions like the Irish Exhibition of Living Art and is no longer seen as the premier outlet for avant-garde Irish art. After a decline in membership, the Society ceases to exist by the early 1960s.

(Pictured: “The Post Car” by Jack B. Yeats displayed at the first exhibition, Adam’s Auctioneers of Dublin)


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Death of Landscape Artist Dairine Vanston

Dairine (Doreen) Vanston, Irish landscape artist who works in a Cubist style, dies in Enniskerry, County Wicklow on July 12, 1988.

Vanston is born in Dublin on October 19, 1903. She is the daughter of solicitor John S. B. Vanston, and sculptor Lilla Vanston (née Coffey). She attends Alexandra College, going on to study at Goldsmith’s College, London under Roger Bissière. She then goes to Paris to the Académie Ranson, being sent there following the advice of Paul Henry. While in Paris she meets Guillermo Padilla, a Costa Rican law student at the University of Paris. They marry in 1926 and she takes the name Vanston de Padilla. The couple lives for a time in Italy, before moving to San José, Costa Rica. The marriage breaks down in the early 1930s, at which point she returns to Paris with her son and studies with André Lhote. She is living in France at the outbreak of World War II with Jankel Adler, but is able to escape to London in 1940, and later to Dublin.

Vanston’s time in Paris leaves a lasting impression on her work, including use of primary colours and a strong Cubist influence. She belongs to what critic Brian Fallon calls the “Franco-Irish generation of painters who looked to Paris,” along with Mainie Jellett, Evie Hone, and Norah McGuinness. Her time spent living in Costa Rica in the late 1920s and early 1930s imbues her work with tropical and highly toned colours. In Dublin in 1935, she exhibits 17 paintings, largely Costa Rican landscapes, at Daniel Egan’s gallery on St. Stephen’s Green. This is the closest thing to a solo show she would mount, with this show also featuring Grace Henry, Cecil Ffrench Salkeld, and Edward Gribbon.

Meeting the English artist Basil Rakoczi, who is also living in Dublin during World War II, leads Vanston to become associated with The White Stag group. In November 1941, she exhibits for the first time at a group show with 24 other artists, including Patrick Scott. One work that is shown at this exhibition is the painting Keel dance hall, which demonstrates that she spends time in the west of Ireland. The most important event staged by the group is the Exhibition of subjective art, which takes place at 6 Lower Baggot St. in January 1944. The Dublin Magazine notes her work at this show as the most effective of the experimental vanguard. This work, Dying animal, is a Cubist work with semi-representation forms rendered in bold colours. In 1945, her work is featured in a White Stag exhibition in London of young Irish painters at the Arcade gallery, Old Bond St.

In 1947, Vanston spends almost a year in Costa Rica where she paints primarily in watercolours. Apart from this period, she lives and works in Dublin, living at 3 Mount Street Crescent near St. Stephen’s Church. At the inaugural Irish Exhibition of Living Art in 1943, she exhibits five works. At the first Exhibition of Independent Artists in 1960, of which she is a founder, she exhibits three landscapes and a work entitled War. She largely exhibits with the Independent Artists, the Irish Exhibition of Living Art, and the Oireachtas na Gaeilge, and does not exhibit with the Royal Hibernian Academy. Later in life, she exhibits with the Figurative Image exhibitions in Dublin, and is amongst the first painters chosen for Aosdána. A number of her works are featured in the 1987 exhibition, Irish women artists, from the eighteenth century to the present arranged by the National Gallery of Ireland and The Douglas Hyde Gallery.

Vanston dies on July 12, 1988, in a nursing home in Enniskerry, County Wicklow. Her work is greatly admired, but has received little by way of critical attention, which may have been to do with her slow rate of output. A number of her works have proved difficult to trace. She was a private person, even refusing to cooperate with the Taylor Galleries in the 1980s when they wanted to mount a retrospective of her work. The National Self-Portrait Collection in Limerick holds a work by Vanston.

(Pictured: “Landscape with Lake and Hills” (1964), oil on paper (monotype) by Dairine Vanston)