Sean O'Sullivan RHA (1906 - 1964) The Old Couple Oil on canvas, 71 x 91.5cms (27.75 x 35.75'') Signed and dated 1943 Provenance: Purchased directly from the artist by the current owners'...

Sean O'Sullivan RHA (1906 - 1964) The Old Couple Oil on canvas, 71 x 91.5cms (27.75 x 35.75'') Signed and dated 1943 Provenance: Purchased directly from the artist by the current owners' father in 1943 and thence by descent. Exhibited: 1943 RHA Annual Exhibition Cat No. 92 where on loan from current owners' father. 1977 Wexford Arts Centre ''Irish Art from Private Collections 1870 - 1930'' Cat. No. 37 ''Ireland: Her People and Landscape'' The AVA Gallery, June - Sept 2012, Cat. No. 41 Literature: ''Irelands Painters 1600 - 1940'' by Anne Cruikshank and The Knight of Glin 2002 P282 (Fig 388) ''One Hundred Years of Irish Art - A Millennium Presentation'' by Eamonn Mallie P250 Full page illustration P251 Irish Rural Interiors in Art, Claudia Kinmonth, 2006, p73, illustrated p 74 ''Ireland: Her People and Landscape'' Exhibition Catalogue, full page illustration p48 Seán O'Sullivan was born in 44 St Joseph's Terrace, South Circular Road, and later raised in 126 St Stephen's Green in Dublin, where his father, John, ran a business as a carpenter and joiner. He was educated with the Christian Brothers' at Synge Street. Measuring over six feet, he was a good boxer, a fencer, a squash player and an enthusiastic sailor. He was also a keen reader and was fluent in both Irish and French. O'Sullivan entered the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art in 1926 where one of his teachers was Seán Keating. His student days were intermittent but while at the school O'Sullivan came to the attention of the then Headmaster, George Atkinson, who arranged for him to undertake a three month training course in lithography at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London under Archibold Standish Hartrick. While in London, O'Sullivan met and later married a young Anglo-Dutch art student, Rene Mouw, and the pair spent their early married years studying in Paris. He then worked as a lithographer with Frank Brangwyn having returned to London in the late 1920s. The couple returned to Dublin in the early 1930s and in 1936 O'Sullivan took a studio at Molesworth Street where he remained until he moved to 6 St Stephen's Green in 1939. He remained in that studio until his death in 1964. Working in the centre of Dublin meant that O'Sullivan was well-connected in the social scene at the time. He was on friendly terms with many of Ireland's best-known writers, actors, poets and painters including Keating, Hilda Van Stockum, Maurice MacGonigal, Harry Kernoff, Patrick Kavanagh, Myles na gCopaleen, F.R. Higgins and John Ryan. O'Sullivan was an extraordinarily talented artist who could turn his hand to any medium. Although perhaps better-known as a portrait painter, he was a keen observer of life on the western seaboard of Ireland. He painted the landscape and people, both young and old, of Connemara and Kerry. According to Claudia Kinmonth the scene presented in The Old Couple is an interior of a cottage in Kerry, and perhaps even the Blasket Islands. This may well be the case as O'Sullivan, a fluent Irish speaker, spent a lot of time there and was on close terms with the Great Blasket's most famous resident, Peig Sayers (1873-1958). The cottage in The Old Couple, which was likely built of mud, is not one of great material comfort, but on the other hand, the couple appear happy and content. They are surrounded by simplicity: a kettle over a glowing fire; a pot of boiled potatoes; a modest bench and a mud-flagged floor. Yet the surroundings reveal so much: the arm holding the kettle over the fireplace is burnt and the formerly white-washed chimney breast is blackened, all signs of age and use. A half concealed door remains closed to prying eyes; a partial bannister suggests a room upstairs; the bench, if opened, might reveal a hard-won trousseau, or the miscellanies of a family long-reared. It a large, clean kitchen, in a bright house, but there is no sign of a table or a dresser, and the walls are peculiarly bare but for the clock hanging to the right of the fireplace; a metaphor for the passage of time. The atmosphere suggests many types of absence; histories that only the old couple can remember between themselves. In the meantime, they are very much involved in the moment of their relaxation. She presents a fascinating portrait. Her hair is greying, her face well-worn, and her hands are like those of a man - well-used to hard labour. She stoops to light her white clay pipe, a form of rest from the labours of the potato fields. By implication, she will sit back on the bare bench to enjoy her few moments rest - there is nowhere else, unless the floor. He, on the other hand, is fully shod from top to toe. His unlined features are highlighted by the bearing of his little cap. He leans forward, pipe in hand; his left hand is raised as if waiting to ask for the match to light his tobacco. He is seated on the only chair in the room; the two are united by their histories, their surroundings and through the gestures that enliven the scene. Meanwhile, unnoticed, his faithful companion, also well-settled, appears to be contemplating the pot of potatoes with that focussed and seriously intentioned stillness that dog owners know well. Although apparently bare, O'Sullivan's painting of the unnamed pair in The Old Couple reveals a great deal. It is a wonderfully observed image for which the artist undertook at least one, if not several compositional studies. The relaxed atmosphere of the work seems to have been augmented by what appears to have been the artist's comfortable familiarity with the couple: their past; their daily routine; their home; and of course, their dog. The painting portrays a lively, happy, if timeworn twosome, well-content with each other, and with their lives as already lived. Yet, it also signals their acceptance of the inexorable journey that will take them both someplace else. In the interim, however, by virtue of the attitude of their 'best friend', which seems to have gone entirely unnoticed, they may have a rival for the contents of the pot. Dr Éimear O'Connor HRHA Research Associate TRIARC-Irish Art Research Centre Trinity College Dublin

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