Two art sales offer a chance for collectors to spring into action

Nothing promotes a room refresh so much as a new painting. Which is where auctions in Ireland next week come into play

Peter Curling's 'Neck and Neck' at Morgan O'Driscoll.

At this time of year, with its focus on the newest interior fashions and the latest colour trends, what is overlooked is that beloved paintings changed around at home almost always end up being looked at anew. Try it. If your favourite painting has been hanging in the same place for so long that it is practically part of the furniture, it is almost certainly no longer appreciated as it deserves to be. Real art is about looking, not background decoration.

Nothing promotes a refresh so much as an addition to the collection which necessitates a re-hang. Which is where auctions in Ireland next week come into play.

How about a fast-paced horse-racing painting from Peter Curling? A luminous oil of evening light from the final years of artist Joseph Malachy Kavanagh in Brittany, or perhaps something more abstract, modern, postmodern, contemporary or now? There is ample opportunity for collectors to spring into action at art sales by Morgan O'Driscoll on Monday evening and Sheppard's in Durrow on Tuesday. Both catalogues are online and will richly reward a long, slow perusal.

Morgan O'Driscoll kicks off with Birds of a Feather, a pastel-on-paper by Graham Knuttel, who proved his popularity at James Adam's highly successful Graham Knuttel Part II sale in Dublin last week, where his work sold like hot cakes.

John Bellany's 'Masquerade' at Sheppard's.

Variety is a hallmark at O'Driscoll's sale with everything from a highly colourful abstract landscape by Colin Middleton and a 1969 litho by Louis le Brocquy entitled Death of Fraech from The Tain series to an appetising still life by William Crozier, Equinox 2016 by Felim Egan and a famine ship by John Behan. 

Damien Hirst's 'Circle Spin' at Morgan O'Driscoll.

On the international side, the sale offers work by Damien Hirst, Mr Brainwash and Andy Warhol.

William Scott, Basil Blackshaw, John Butler Yeats, Countess Markievicz, Liam O'Neill, Frank McKelvey, Pauline Bewick and Rowan Gillespie are all included in the online catalogue of 246 lots.

The 310-lot auction at Sheppard's is anchored by the collection of Gerry Cuddy in Co Antrim and a curated group of works from the studios of Barrie Cooke and Sonja Landweer. The auction offers what Peter Murray describes as one of the "finest landscape paintings" by Grace Henry. It is of Achill Island, painted between 1912 and 1919 and estimated at €12,000-€15,000. This makes it the second-highest estimate of the auction, after John Bellany's Masquerade, with an estimate of €25,000-€35,000. Bellany was one of the most influential Scottish artists of the post-World War Two era, and David Bowie was among those who collected his work.l

'Animated River Landscape, Homestead and Castle Beyond' by George Mullins at Sheppard's.

The work   Animated Landscape by George Mullins (€10,000-€15,000) at Sheppard's is one of the very few fully authenticated paintings by the artist that is known. A bronze, Shaped Form, by Sonja Landweer, is estimated at €5,000-€8,000 and there is a strong representation by Northern Irish artists like William Conor, Dan O'Neill, James Humbert Craig, Markey Robinson and Maurice Wilks.

The auction offers a breadth of materials across many price ranges with art by Letitia Marion Hamilton, Rose Barton, Albert Hartland, Arthur Maderson, Eoin MacLochlainn, John Shinnors, Kenneth Webb, Ian Pollock, Rory Breslin, Fr Jack Hanlon, Mildred Anne Butler and many others.

Viewing is now underway in Durrow, and the catalogue is online.