The catalogue for deVeres art auction in Dublin on May 14th contains some timely images of the Irish countryside as many city residents decamp for the bank holiday weekend at the official start of summer.
Paintings of rural scenes are among the perennial bestsellers at auction.
No artist better depicts the reality of contemporary rural Ireland than Kildare-based Martin Gale (born 1949) who specialises in landscapes and whose work is in many private and public collections.
In an interview in the Irish Arts Review in 2009 Gale said: "Paul Henry's Ireland is dead and gone. Your rural dweller nowadays is sitting in his nice warm house watching Champions League football on his flat-screen telly. Probably eating pizza and drinking Danish beer". Among his paintings at deVeres is Indian Summer (€4,000-€6,000) which shows freshwater swimmers in the summer of 2002.
A more traditional depiction of rural Ireland is Frank McKelvey's Woman Feeding Chickens , dating from the 1920s, and estimated at €15,000-€20,000. The catalogue is online at deveres.ie. –MP
