Lot 126: Ian MacInnes A VIEW OF STROMNESS, ORKNEY signed

Ian MacInnes A VIEW OF STROMNESS, ORKNEY signed lower right oil on board, 71cm x 105cm (28" x 41.25") Note: Ian MacInnes was an artist, teacher and political activist who spent most of his life on Orkney. He shared a love of Stromness and its idiosyncratic residents with his lifelong friend the writer George Mackay Brown. MacInnes provided illustrations for the dust jackets of many of Mackay Brown's books. The present lot appears at first glance to show an idyllic view of Stromness, however closer inspection reveals various unusual details. While a funeral takes place in the foreground, a couple are cavorting behind a gravestone and a fisherman pushing his barrow has a skeletal spectre of death at his shoulder. The picture calls to mind Mackay Brown's novel Greenvoe, in which a seemingly quiet Orcadion community is rife with dark undercurrents see illustration