Lot 21: Mícheál MacLíammóir (1899-1978) "FRANNCACH AG RITH I NDIAID A BHAIREID"

signed [M.MAC L.] lower left; with title inscribed in "Seanchló" (old type) in the margin lower corner; with artist's name [Miceal Mac Uallmoir] also in the margin lower right; with typed label on original backing board on reverse

h:9.75 w:6.25in.

pen and ink with gouache heightened with white

'Micheal Mac Liammoir, Designs & Illustrations 1917-1972', The Dublin Arts Festival, March, 1973, catalogue no. 1 (listed p.5 of catalogue);
'Micheal Mac Liammoir, Designs & Illustrations 1917-1972', Cork Arts Society Gallery, April 1973 presented by the Dublin Arts Festival and An Chomhairle Ealaíon
'All for Hecuba. An exhibition to mark the Golden Jubilee of the Edwards - Mac Liammóir partnership and of the Gate Theatre 1928-1978', Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin, 2 October to 2 November 1978, catalogue no. 3 as Five Pictures, 1917, of which this was one

Edwards, Hilton (foreword), Micheal Mac Liammoir, Designs & Illustrations 1917-1972, The Dublin Arts Festival, printed by E. & T. O'Brien, Dublin, 1973, p.5 (listed)

A gift from the artist to the previous owner's father;
Whyte's, 30 May 2011, lot 38;
Whence puchased by the present owner

Sheet size: 10.75 by 7ins.

A rare and early example by English-born Irish actor, dramatist, impresario, writer, poet and painter Mícheál Mac Líammóir dating to 1917. Enchanting and, at the same time, slightly sinister they exude all the charm and Celtic mysticism one might expect from a Renaissance man of the era and are testament to the artist's imagination which repeatedly drew inspiration from ancient Irish folklore as well as from his celebrated contemporary, Jack Butler Yeats.

Born Michael Willmore, near London, the artist began his career early as a child actor playing roles such as Oliver Twist at the tender age of eleven at His Majesty's Theatre. As a young man he became fascinated with the Irish language and joined a London branch of the Gaelic League and became a self-taught gaelgóir. Theo Snoddy notes, "On coming to Dublin, he signed his watercolours Michael Willmore but in a small part at the Abbey Theatre in 1917 he became Mícheál MacLiammóir."

When the present work was sold in 2011 it was accompanied by three other lots from the same source. Amusingly, these early works traced this transition, two were signed "Micheal Willmore, 1917", and the present work "Míceál Mac Uallmóir". Snoddy notes an astonishing twelve different signature formats throughout the artist's career. In 1928 Mac Líammóir founded The Gate Theatre with partner Hilton Edwards, who aptly described his graphic work as having, "…a romantic beauty, an evocation of things other than the obvious and the commonplace. An almost foot-light glamour is never really absent from them, or at least a light not seen by ordinary eyes. Never is gaiety far from his work, and there is always a sense of other-worldliness, whether that other world be of the Sidhe or of those lands that lie behind the theatre curtain that is about to rise." (Foreword, The Dublin Arts Festival catalogue)

The original owner of this work was a friend and colleague of the artist and it was lent to several exhibitions as well as to Radió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ) c.1999 for the documentary, Dear Boy: The Story of Mícheál Mac Líammóir.