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Artist: Louis Le Brocquy HRHA (1916-2012) Title: Ancestral Head (1965) (Opus 156) Signature: signed, titled and dated 1965 verso Medium: oil on canvas Size: 65 x 54cm (25.6 x 21.3in) Framed Size: 88.4 x 77.4cm (34.8 x 30.5in) Provenance: De Vere's, Dublin, 22nd June 1999 lot 68; Private Collection Exhibited: The Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin and The Ulster Museum, Belfast: A Retrospective Selection of Oil Paintings 1939-1966: Catalogue No. 88, illustrated page 60 Literature: Louis Le Brocquy by Dorothy Walker Plate No. 81, page 100, illustrated a#morebtn { color: #de1d01; } a#morebtn:hover { cursor: pointer;} Like several leading twentieth-century artists in Ireland, Louis le Brocquy was largely self-taught. Born in Dublin in 1916, he was initially destined for a career in industry, but decided in 1938 to travel on the Continent, and to study art through seeing paintings in the major museums of Europe. A... Read more Louis Le Brocquy Lot 34 - 'Ancestral Head (1965) (Opus 156)' Estimate: €30,000 - €50,000 Like several leading twentieth-century artists in Ireland, Louis le Brocquy was largely self-taught. Born in Dublin in 1916, he was initially destined for a career in industry, but decided in 1938 to travel on the Continent, and to study art through seeing paintings in the major museums of Europe. After returning to Ireland he exhibited at the Irish Exhibition of Living Art, before moving to London in 1946. In the decades after World War II, le Brocquy's paintings were inspired by a small number of themes, nearly all based on the human figure. The earliest was Travelling people and this was followed by the family, 'Procession', 'Children in a Wood', the 'Presence' paintings and 'Ancestral Heads'. In this painting, which dates from 1965, le Brocquy has represented a head as if floating in space or emerging from a light grey mist. With its eyes obscured and the lower jaw missing, the image is almost barely recognisable as human. The artist's obsession with this subject matter began the previous year, when he saw decorated heads from Polynesia in the Musée de l'Homme in Paris. He linked this Pacific art form with the cult of the head evident in pre-Christian art in Ireland and France. Although le Brocquy's early work was inspired by Cézanne and the Cubists, from the early 1960's onwards, as is evident in this work, his paintings are characterised by vigorous brushwork and inspired mark-making. Peter Murray, May 2021