James Humbert Craig RHA RUA (1878-1944) Donegal, Walking Home from School Oil on canvas, 73 x 83cm, (28.75 x 32.75'') Signed Provenance: The Kinlen Collection This fine, and unusually large,...

James Humbert Craig RHA RUA (1878-1944) Donegal, Walking Home from School Oil on canvas, 73 x 83cm, (28.75 x 32.75'') Signed Provenance: The Kinlen Collection This fine, and unusually large, picture by J. H. Craig probably depicts a scene in the Rosses, County Donegal, a favourite painting ground of the artist from the 1930s, where he delighted in recording the lake-strewn landscape with its scattered hills and mountains. The degree of realism that Craig and his contemporaries-Paul Henry and Frank McKelvey come to mind-developed in the early years of the twentieth century was new to Irish painting and went beyond the limits of depicting merely the mood and atmosphere of the scene. Craig 'is out in all weathers ? It is only the painter who goes out in rainy and windy weather who is rewarded by the revelation of the beauty of light and colour he paints,' noted George Russell (AE) in the Irish Statesman (4 December 1926.) Here, Russell's observations are clear to be seen in the ruggedness of the terrain, which is captured with great economy of means, and one senses the growing lethargy of the late afternoon, as the two children, lingering at the turn of the road, make their way home from school. Typical of Craig's work in general, the paint surface is fresh, the colours un-muddied and the directness of the execution-Craig, when working out of doors, drew directly with his brush-is notable throughout and especially so in the tonal qualities of the distant hills (which may be those of the Derryveagh Mountains) and the sky, one of the glories of the composition. 'There is an air of distinction about all [Craig's] work that entitles him to rank in the foremost ? of Irish painters,' commented the Irish Times in 1928 (Irish Times, 22 November 1928). And it continued, 'He catches and conveys to his canvas in the most natural way the atmosphere of his subject ?.' Dated to the 1930s on stylistic grounds. Dr. S.B. Kennedy, May 2008

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