Lot 137: Desmond Stephenson ARHA (1922-1963) Cattle in a

Desmond Stephenson ARHA (1922-1963) Cattle in a Landscape Oil on board, 37 x 54cm (14.5 x 21.2") Signed Provenance: From a Private Dublin Collection Although very much in the tradition of the figurative pastoral plein-air, the artist's work was enriched and indeed emboldened by his admiration for Spanish and Italian painting. He used the ochre stained ground to give depth and solidity to the pictorial composition rather in the manner of another artist he admired Honoré Daumier and allows the higher tones to make the striking notes. Geometric and regular in his compositional norms the artist used the idea of dynamic asymmetry rather in the manner but not colouration of Paul Henry to gain his compositional point. The shapes and massing of landscape forms seen in great sweeps of landmasses as seen in Wicklow and Connemara appealed to his sense of correctness in the observation of landscape painting. The artist spent long periods of working in Wicklow around Lough Dan, and later with his friend Maurice MacGon gal around Ballinaclash where some of his most vivid landscapes were painted, and also with MacGonigal in Connemara over several years in the Roundstone and Ballyconneely areas. His liking for burnt umber and sienna pigments with strong slanting diagonal lines balanced by the uptilted perspective of a formula seen through the construct of the golden mean is well exemplified in this painting where light touches enliven the foreground and the horizon line of the sea seen at a distance. The crepuscular palette gets its extra lift from the rocks and stones in the foreground and middle distance and the far off sea along the horizon. Ciarán MacGonigal, December 2008