Beschreibung:

CORNER OF THE STUDIO, 1930-31 James Sinton Sleator PRHA (1885-1950)
Signature: oil on canvas Medium: label inscribed by original owner on reverse Dimensions: 61 by 51cm., 24 by 20in. Provenance: Dr T. G. Wilson, who obtained it from the artist; James Adam Salesrooms, Dublin, 17 June 1992, lot 93; Gorry Gallery, Dublin, October 1992; Private collection Exhibited: RHA, Dublin, 1932, catalogue no. 28 (£84-0-0); ’Exhibition of 18th, 19th and 20th Century Irish Paintings’, Gorry Gallery, Dublin, 30 October - 12 November 1992, catalogue no. 4 (illustrated on front cover of catalogue) In the original frame of Alfred Stiles and Sons, Hammersmith, London. As a student at the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin James Sleator was a pupil of Sir William Orpen but, like many others at... t the time, Orpen had an overbearing influence on him so that he never reached the heights he might otherwise have done. He is, however, one of the most important figures — Margaret Clarke Seán Keating, Albert Power Patrick Tuohy and Leo Whelan were his contemporaries — on the academic side of Irish painting of the years before the onslaught of American-inspired Modernism in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He was, too, with Paul Henry and Jack B. Yeats, one of the founding members in 1920 of the Society of Dublin Painters. In 1927 Sleator settled in London, where he worked with Orpen while also establishing his own practice as a portrait painter. This picture, Corner of the Studio, therefore, dates from these years. Although Orpen died in 1931, Sleator spent the rest of the decade in London before settling permanently in Dublin in 1941. During the thirties, however, he kept in touch with Ireland and often holidayed at Newcastle, Co. Down, with his friend T. G. Wilson, the first owner of this picture. Orpen’s studio in South Bolton Gardens, London, was in fact the setting for Corner of the Studio. The composition is Dutch in feeling, with a hint of Vermeer and de Hooch, and the theatricality of the lighting—a veritable tour de force — is a typically ‘Sleator’ device. Of a pensive disposition, still life and floral subjects were ideally suited to Sleator’s personality. His ability to differentiate between materials and surface textures — a characteristic of all his work — is clearly evident here and the Impressionist hint of the brushwork betrays his knowledge and understanding, which was keen, of recent French painting. Notwithstanding the otherwise traditional nature of his work, Sleator developed an assurance and a sense of purpose which, with the passing of Modernism, are rare nowadays. Dr S. B. Kennedy, Seaforde, March 200 more