Munster Express Online

Following another record breaking year at Sotheby’s for Irish Art in 2007, Sothebys will host a The Irish Sale in London on May 7th. Highlights from the sale will be exhibited at Lismore Castle Arts and will feature paintings, drawings and sculpture from the 18th century to the present day.

Among the 118 lots to go under the hammer are several highly important works by the key artists from the late 19th and early 20th Century such as Sir John Lavery, Sir William Orpen, Roderic O’Conor, Jack Butler Yeats and Walter Frederick Osborne. The sale has a particularly strong group of works by Sir John Lavery that spans the entire progression of his career; from his time at the artists’ colony at Grez-sur-Loing in the early 1880s to 1932, the last decade of the artist’s life. A Windy Day has not been seen in public since it was exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1910 and is thought to depict one of his favourite models, Mary Auras, a beautiful young German girl who is also the sitter for Miss Auras, The Red Book.

Moving on to a more recent generation of Irish artists, the sale will include an exceptional Private Collection of works by the Belfast born Daniel O’Neill. The group was formed by Stanley Smith, whose brother Sidney Smith had studied with O’Neill. We are also delighted to include several iconic works by Ireland’s most esteemed and celebrated living artist, Louis le Brocquy, including two portrait heads depicting Ireland’s most famous literary figures, Samuel Beckett and James Joyce.

For further information, please see www.sothebys.com or Telephone: (058) 54061

Gallery Coffee Shop open 10am-4pm. Lismore Castle Gardens open daily 11am-4.45pm