Norah McGuinness HRHA (1901-1980)

Evening Flight

Oil on canvas, 51 x 76cm (20 x 30'')
Signed

 

Provenance: The collection of Brian and Anne Friel; The Keys Gallery, Derry.

Exhibited:

Norah McGuinness HRHA (1901-1980)

Evening Flight

Oil on canvas, 51 x 76cm (20 x 30'')
Signed

 

Provenance: The collection of Brian and Anne Friel; The Keys Gallery, Derry.

Exhibited: Norah McGuinness Exhibition The Keys Gallery, Derry, April/May 1979 Cat. No. 2 (Illustrated).

 

Norah McGuinness was born in Derry and kept a close connection with the northwest throughout her life. Despite living in Dublin, London, Paris and New York at various stages in her career, her northern origins were always a major part of her identity. For several years, she had a studio at Rathmullan on the banks of Lough Swilly, where she painted many landscapes of north Donegal. In 1976, towards the end of her life, the Keys Gallery in Derry held an exhibition of her work. Brian and Anne Friel share her association with Donegal and Derry and it is natural that work by her features in their collection.

In the foreground of Evening Flight, curlews, with their long beaks and mottled plumage, peck at the piles of seaweed, left behind by the outgoing tide. A large white gull swoops across the picture plane, adding a sense of movement and drama to the scene. (This device of the gliding bird is also seen in McGuinnesss painting, Seaweed Shapes, (1965, Crawford Art Gallery, Cork).) The distinctive chimneys of the Pigeon House and the outline of cranes and the industrial structures of Dublin port are discernible in the background and on the horizon in the painting.

In her later years, in the 1960s and 1970s, McGuinness did several paintings of the coastline of Dublin in which she contrasted the vibrant sea-bird life with the more solemn urban aspects of the location. In these works she continued to refine her deployment of cubism, which she had learnt in the studio of André Lhote in Paris in the 1920s. Traces of it can be seen in this work in the schematised form of the seagull and in the geometricized treatment of the buildings. She was particularly fond of Sandymount strand from which both residential and industrial edifices were visible and which would seem to be the inspiration for this work. Subtle and unpredictable colour combinations of blues and pinks unite the diverse elements of the painting. McGuinness produces a refreshingly modern image of Dublin Bay, in which the forms are elegantly orchestrated to create a dynamic and harmonious painting. Much more than a topographical landscape, however, the work is a decorative and skilful arrangement of colour and form.

 

Róisín Kennedy, August 2018

 

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