Louis Le Brocquy H.R.H.A., (Irish, 1916-2012)

Lieder Eines Fahrenden Gesellen 30.5 x 25.5 cm. (12 x 10 in.)

Lieder Eines Fahrenden Gesellen
signed 'LE BROCQUY' (lower right); further signed and dated 'LE BROCQUY/1956' (on the canvas overlap) and titled 'LIEDER EINES FAHRENDEN GESELLEN' (on the stretcher)
oil on canvas
30.5 x 25.5 cm. (12 x 10 in.)

Provenance
With Gimpel Fils, London, where acquired by the present owner, 6 June 2000
Private Collection, Northern Ireland

Lieder Eines Fahrenden Gesellen (AKA Ging heut' Morgen über's Feld) came about after a revelatory tour of Spain in 1955. John Montague observed: 'Something happened to le Brocquy in the mid-fifties, a new feeling for painting, a draining away of formal inessentials to present the central image more directly ... The whole cycle (usually known as Songs of a Wayfarer) is about a heartbroken lover wandering through the summer fields. Le Brocquy uses the simplest means to suggest this counterpoint of sorrow and jubilance, dividing the canvas in two areas of light and shadow, with the central figure striding forward, despite the ridges of his coat or cloak. It is a minute but forceful image of survival, a Watteau-like tribute to nature, broken down to its contrasting elements' ('Primal Scream, The Later le Brocquy', The Arts in Ireland, Vol.2, No I, Dublin, 1973, p.4).

We are grateful to Pierre le Brocquy for his assistance in cataloguing this lot.