Des O'Sullivan: While Francis Bacon and Sean Scully are to the fore abroad but the Irish art market must evolve

'Paintings by Irish turn-of-the-20th-century and later artists are in short supply. The best are in public and private collections from which they emerge only rarely' 

'Landscape with Trees' by Roderic O'Conor made €340,000 at hammer at deVeres; right, Francis Bacon's 'Portrait of a Dwarf' made £13.1 million (€14.88 million) at Sotheby's.

The innate conservatism of the Irish art market was apparent at the big winter sales in Dublin, where the dominant artists were the bankable Roderic O'Conor and Paul Henry. 

Yes, the market is developing and making room for modern, postmodern and contemporary Irish artists.  Yet while Francis Bacon and Sean Scully will cut it abroad, it is the old reliables like Yeats, Orpen, Lavery and Osborne who dominate at home. Who will bring home the Bacon?