Lot 43: m - Hughie O'Donoghue , b.1953 Getting out at Cherbourg oil on canvas laid on board

signed and titled on the reverse oil on canvas laid on board

50 by 60.5cm.; 19¾ by 23¾in.

The present work relates to an important theme in the artist's oeuvre exploring the nature of war and refers specifically to his father Daniel's experiences during World War II and crucially, his retreat from France through the port of Cherbourg in June 1940 after the evacuation of Dunkirk. Getting out at Cherbourg is a smaller version of a large-scale oil with the same title (1996, 76 by 86in.) and 'brings together the images of a ship sailing away and a malevolent dark smear of carborundum. This was splashed on to the paint and the print as a response to Daniel being spat at by French civilians as his column of troops boarded the last ship to leave Cherbourg' (J.Hamilton, Hughie O'Donoghue, Painting, Memory, Myth, London 2003, p.27). The work belongs to a series entitled The Fall of France which includes other similarly intensely worked images such as A Line of Retreat (1998) and Incident near Huppy (1999-2002). O'Donoghue's work from the series was the subject of a group of highly acclaimed exhibitions entitled A Line of Retreat held in 1997 at the Purdy Hicks Gallery, London; Rubicon Gallery, Dublin; Galerie Helmut Pabst, Frankfurt and the Galerie Karl Pfefferle, Munich. The artist has also had numerous important solo exhibitions at galleries such as the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester; the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge and the Imperial War Museum, London.