Although older than, Kavanagh's career seemed to run side by side with that of Walter Osborne, even before they set off together with Nathaniel Hill to study at Antwerp under Verlat in 1881. He is thought to have come to Brittany with Osborne in late 1882/early 1883, painting very similar subjects to those of Hill and Osborne in Quimperle, Dinan and Pont-Aven.
Writing in 1949, Thomas Mc Greevy, former Director of the National Gallery, refers to Kavanagh in an article entitled ''Fifty years of
Irish Painting'': '' Kavanagh had a wider range and more solid qualities than Osborne. But neither Henry Allan nor Kavanagh is sufficiently well represented in our public collections for it to be possible to form an adequate estimate of their achievement''. This is probably as true today as when it was written in 1949 .
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