Hughie O'Donoghue
CHERBOURG (study) NO.II
Lot 126
Result:
Not Sold
Estimate:
€10,000 - €15,000
Hughie O'Donoghue RA, b.1953
CHERBOURG (study) NO.II
Oil and photographic media on canvas, 33 1/4" x 50 1/2" (84.6 x 128cm), signed; signed, inscribed and dated 2000 verso.
Provenance: Morgan O'Driscoll 20/7/2020 (lot 27); Private Colle...
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Lot 126
Hughie O'Donoghue
CHERBOURG (study) NO.II
Lot 126
Hughie O'Donoghue
CHERBOURG (study) NO.II
Estimate:
€10,000 - €15,000
Hughie O'Donoghue RA, b.1953
CHERBOURG (study) NO.II
Oil and photographic media on canvas, 33 1/4" x 50 1/2" (84.6 x 128cm), signed; signed, inscribed and dated 2000 verso.
Provenance: Morgan O'Driscoll 20/7/2020 (lot 27); Private Collection, Dublin
Although he was born in England, both Hughie O'Donoghue's parents were Irish, and their distinct experiences and family histories have been central to his work. O'Donoghue is well known for his monumental series of paintings approaching the classic theme of The Passion of Christ in contemporary terms, but it's fair to say that the core of his work concerns the lives of "ordinary" people in the context of economic and political realities and the greater currents of history.
O'Donoghue has often used archaeology as a metaphor for his painting method: he unearths and recovers elements of the past. When his father Daniel died he inherited his effects, and among them were Daniel's correspondence, diaries, notebooks and memorabilia from his experiences during the Second World War. He served with the British Expeditionary Force in France and later during the Italian campaign. O'Donoghue was determined to explore his documentation in his work but, although Daniel was a well-read man, and a musician, his son's name was not biographical but rather to cast his father as an Everyman thrust into the maelstrom of world events. Cherbourg related to the first phase of Daniel's wartime experiences, which formed the subject matter first included in the exhibition A Line of Retreat in galleries in the UK and Germany.
Daniel was not among those evacuated from Dunkirk. His regiment followed a chaotic, episodic line of retreat, from the Somme to Caudebeck on the Seine, Le Mans, eventually ending up at Cherbourg. There, in June, he managed to find a place on the last ship out of the port and made it to Southampton. O'Donoghue's beautifully textural paintings of the events are understandably charged with dread and uncertainty, an eerie light and an epic sweep.
Aidan Dunne, July 2020
CHERBOURG (study) NO.II
Oil and photographic media on canvas, 33 1/4" x 50 1/2" (84.6 x 128cm), signed; signed, inscribed and dated 2000 verso.
Provenance: Morgan O'Driscoll 20/7/2020 (lot 27); Private Collection, Dublin
Although he was born in England, both Hughie O'Donoghue's parents were Irish, and their distinct experiences and family histories have been central to his work. O'Donoghue is well known for his monumental series of paintings approaching the classic theme of The Passion of Christ in contemporary terms, but it's fair to say that the core of his work concerns the lives of "ordinary" people in the context of economic and political realities and the greater currents of history.
O'Donoghue has often used archaeology as a metaphor for his painting method: he unearths and recovers elements of the past. When his father Daniel died he inherited his effects, and among them were Daniel's correspondence, diaries, notebooks and memorabilia from his experiences during the Second World War. He served with the British Expeditionary Force in France and later during the Italian campaign. O'Donoghue was determined to explore his documentation in his work but, although Daniel was a well-read man, and a musician, his son's name was not biographical but rather to cast his father as an Everyman thrust into the maelstrom of world events. Cherbourg related to the first phase of Daniel's wartime experiences, which formed the subject matter first included in the exhibition A Line of Retreat in galleries in the UK and Germany.
Daniel was not among those evacuated from Dunkirk. His regiment followed a chaotic, episodic line of retreat, from the Somme to Caudebeck on the Seine, Le Mans, eventually ending up at Cherbourg. There, in June, he managed to find a place on the last ship out of the port and made it to Southampton. O'Donoghue's beautifully textural paintings of the events are understandably charged with dread and uncertainty, an eerie light and an epic sweep.
Aidan Dunne, July 2020
.JPG)
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