Norah McGuinness HRHA (1901-1980) In the Algarve (1961) Oil on canvas, 73 x 91cm (28 x 36'') Possibly exhibited under the title 'The Algarve', the Dawson Gallery, November 1961, Cat No.5. Norah...

Norah McGuinness HRHA (1901-1980) In the Algarve (1961) Oil on canvas, 73 x 91cm (28 x 36'') Possibly exhibited under the title 'The Algarve', the Dawson Gallery, November 1961, Cat No.5. Norah McGuinness was born in Derry on November 7th, 1901 and died in Dublin on November 22nd 1980. In those intervening years she packed in a lot of life experience and a lot of fun. A cosmopolitan lady, she travelled widely not just around Europe but as far afield as the U.S.A. and India. Dublin, London, New York and Paris were cities which left far more of a stamp on her character than her native Derry, which she left at the age of twenty to take up a three-year scholarship at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art. Despite family disapproval of her life choice, she quickly made her mark winning a Royal Dublin Society medal in 1924 and a year later a further medal for drawings shown at the Tailteann Competition. Although she came from a solid, middle-class background, her father, Joseph Allison McGuinness, being a prosperous coal merchant, she was expected to fend for herself financially. Taught by Patrick Tuohy and Oswald Reeves, it was Harry Clarke who most influenced her work at the Metropolitan School of Art. She formed a close friendship with Clarke who helped her win her first commissions as an illustrator. Her illustrations for Laurence Sterne's A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy were very well received; on the book's publication in 1926, the critic at The Studio noting that she was 'on the right road, in that her drawings are manifestly done with an eye to their place in the typographic scheme as a whole'. She was to illustrate for the rest of her life, both books, such as Maria Edgeworth's The Most unfortunate Day of my Life (1931), Eileen O'Faolain's Miss Pennyfeather and the Pooka ((1944), Michael MacLiamm?ir's Theatre in Ireland (1950), Elizabeth Bowen's The Shelbourne (1951), Elizabeth Hamilton's An Irish Childhood (1963) and for publications the likes of the Bystander, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and Helena Rubinstein's cosmetics catalogues. Publicity always came readily to Norah, as did the admiration of men. Without being a beauty she was highly attractive on both a physical and an intellectual level. Although strong-willed and not to be taken for granted, she was good company and much sought-after as a guest. She was a bonne viveuse, a good cook and a wonderful hostess. By the time In the Algarve was painted in 1961 Norah was well recognised both in Ireland and abroad. Her signature viewpoint and her blatant use of colour were both recognised and appreciated. She was particularly adept at capturing heat and searing light. The burning yellows and reds are only intensified by the cooler blues, greens and turquoise. There is a fever in this landscape which seems also to grip the two figures, one of whom appears to be accosting the other; tempers ignite in such infernal heat. The dying sunflowers on their skeletal stalks only serve to emphasise the power and indifference of nature. The clever composition rocks the eye from sunflowers to protagonists and back again. Norah is at her best with the dramatic. Unusually for her, there appears a political comment here : the Portuguese inheritors of this landscape are at daggers drawn, or, as in the case of the female figure to the left, overburdened by toil, whilst down below on the cooler littoral holiday-makers frisk and play. Is she possibly suggesting, with the dying sunflowers, that this way of life is doomed? The tourism behemoth was in its infancy in 1961; what would she make of global warming ? S?le Connaughton-Deeny November 2006

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