William Conor RHA RUA (1844-1968) The Currach in the West Oil on canvas board, 43 x 48.5cm (17 x 19'') Signed Provenance: The McClelland Collection and on loan to IMMA from 1999 to 2004. ...

William Conor RHA RUA (1844-1968) The Currach in the West Oil on canvas board, 43 x 48.5cm (17 x 19'') Signed Provenance: The McClelland Collection and on loan to IMMA from 1999 to 2004. Exhibited: ''Selected works from the Mc Clelland Collection'' Sept 200-Jan 2001. Literature: ''The Hunter Gatherer- The Collection of George and Maura Mc Clelland at the Irish Museum of Modern Art'' Fig 19, full page illustration P. 33 The early training in the art of the poster and the technical influences of poster art images as understood by the artist are important elements in his creation of an image, and its technical delivery. His periods of work and study in West Kerry on the Blaskets and its vivid culture in the early 20th century lends extra force to what was said of him that, if folk culture and its songs could be translated into painting then this Belfast painter would be a singer of those songs. Making a play on the old man rowing the currach and the young girls, young women in the making, like so much of his work, the foreground composition is dominant, with the ''suggestivo'' of the background setting and capturing the moment. The artist's capacity to distil a middle distance in a manner learned from his early poster days, the mountain in the background gives the balance and atmosphere to this charming work. The leading edge of the currach, and the oars bring the eye into the composition in a very dynamic way, whose visual speed is arrested by the upright of the male figure and the more serpentine line of the two girls, one of whom is more casually posed to look back at us with that laughing glance which is so typical of his work and conveys great tranquillity and happiness, a moment seen and never forgotten from long ago. Age and Youth, time passing and a wonderful landscape all distil so much of this artist's best works. Ciar?n MacGonigal, December 2008

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