IMPORTANT IRISH ART SALE

Tuesday 26th March 2013 12:00am

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Louis le Brocquy HRHA (1916-2012) Garlanded Goat (1949-50) Colour inverted Aubusson Tapestry, 155 x 130cm (61 x 51.5'') Signed and dated 1950 in weave of tapestry. Atelier René Duché 1999,...

Louis le Brocquy HRHA (1916-2012) Garlanded Goat (1949-50) Colour inverted Aubusson Tapestry, 155 x 130cm (61 x 51.5'') Signed and dated 1950 in weave of tapestry. Atelier René Duché 1999, numbered 8/9 verso in weave. Signed by the artist on label verso 'Garlanded Goat' was exhibited at The Taylor Galleries, Dublin - ''Louis le Borcquy - Aubusson Tapestries'' May 2000, before travelling to Agnews in London Provenance: Purchased directly from the artist Louis le Brocquy wrote that in the early forties, in Dublin, he had become interested in the emotional effect of colour, particularly in the relationship of the chromatic scale in music to the twelve subdivisions of the primary colours, red, yellow and blue. He said that at that time he was also excited by the dramatic effect caused by the visual inversion of both colour and tone. ''Further to the emotional character of single and interrelated colour, lies the magic of colour inversion. Staring fixedly at a colour or colours, the saturated eye - shifting to a white surface - precisely inverts those colours both in hue and tonality. A retinal 'memory' emerges inverted, an entirely new perception as contrary as night from day''. Later in London in the late forties, early fifties le Brocquy designed a number of tapestries for Tabard Freres et Soeurs, Aubusson which included Travellers, the Eden series and Garlanded Goat. These were apparently designed by means of a technique learned from the master in this medium, Jean Lurçat. le Brocquy wrote that at the time when he was first designing these tapestries he also made second versions, inverted in both colour and tone. He said that he had had to wait fifty years before those colour-inverted cartoons could be woven at Aubusson by René Duché in 1999. le Brocquy's design for Garlanded Goat was based on his painting Goat in Snow (1949), now in Leeds City Art Gallery, and on the ancient ceremony at the Puck Fair at Killorglin, Co. Kerry. In the Architectural Review, London, June 1957, Robert Merville wrote ''....apart from a few of Lurçat's, it is the most successful tapestry I have seen and a superb latter-day example of the Celtic art of surface decoration''. In the 2000 Tayor Galleries Catalogue, Musée Départmental de la Tapisserie Head Curator, Michèle Giffault wrote: Without question, the most surprising thing about Louis le Brocquy's work is it's enduring quality, marked not so much by development as by an astonishing diversity encompassing the main currents that have characterised painting this century. We sense the affinity of his thought to the greatest achievements and the greatest names. His work is quite unique, disconcerting. And when we turn to the tapestries, we are again taken by surprise. From the exploratory work that he did in the 1950's with François Tabard, Jean Lurçat and his followers to full scale editions - both retissages and new, late-20th-century works - the interest that Louis le Brocquy brings to the art of weaving and his deep knowledge of the subject have never been in doubt. Above all, he has thought his tapestries through as a true designer who produces cartoons very different in size from his paintings. The Celebrated Garlanded Goat and Adam and Eve in the Garden link the refined simplicity of medieval weavings with the mastery of Cubist drawing. In them we detect the parallel paths taken by designer-artists around Lurçat such as Coutaud, Saint-Saëns and Tourlière. These artists also exchange ideas when designing cartoons, guiding the lissiers without preventing them from interpreting freely and applying technical virtuosity to the rigour of the original cartoon. Whatever form of expression le Brocquy uses, his spell is irresistible. The artist's powers are as remarkable in painting as they are in tapestry, and are widely acclaimed as such.

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Hammer Price: €47,000

Estimate EUR : €45,000 - €55,000

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