George Russell (1867-1935) Two Girls Playing by the Seashor...

Estimate

€8,000 - €12,000

George Russell (1867-1935) Two Girls Playing by the Seashore Oil on canvas, 41 x 53.5cm (16 x 21'') Provenance: With Pyms Gallery, London; Sale, Whytes, 2nd March, 2009, Lot 76 George William Russell (1867-1935) was an Irish artist whose remarkable body of work has deservedly enjoyed a renewed interest in recent decades. Russell was a consummate polymath who in addition to being a prolific painter, was also involved in publishing, drama and poetry. A contemporary of William Butler Yeats, Russell was also a central figure of the The Irish Literary Revival. Born in Lurgan, County Armagh, Russell moved to Dublin aged 11 and enrolled in the Metropolitan School of Art in 1884. It was during this time that his lifelong and influential friendship with Yeats began. In a passage from his autobiographies, Yeats described how Russell's paintings engaged with a spiritual reality hidden behind their subjects 'He did not paint the model as we tried to, for some other image rose always before his eyes'. 　 Like Yeats and his wider circle, Russell was deeply engaged with Eastern Mysticism and various esoteric doctrines, in particular those of the Theosophical Society. One of his main preoccupations was how these ideas gleaned from these belief systems could be applied to the context of Ireland. The artist was primarily a painter of figures in a landscape and within this, two sides of his oeuvre emerged. One being the depiction of mythological and folkloric scenes, often drawn from his own vision of the sídh; the supernatural denizens of Ireland descendent from The Tuatha Dé Danann. The other, exemplified by this painting, was more rooted in the recognisably Irish landscape and drew on scenes of everyday life. Russell had great affection for his country and its people, also evidenced by his many political and poetic writings. A cultural nationalist, he wrote passionately about the future of an independent and united Ireland and spent much time travelling around rural Ireland via his work with the the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society (IAOS). His affiliation with Ireland on cultural and political levels became intertwined with his aesthetic appreciation for the landscape. This work, most likely dating from the first decade of the 1900s features a reoccurring subject for the painter, that of figures gambolling on a beach. This subject and its treatment can be likened to that of French landscape painter Eugène Boudin, who became renowned for his coastal scenes in the last decades of the 19th century. In this luminous painting, two ethereal figures commune with the elements, their hair and clothing whipped by the wind, their feet lifting them momentarily above the sands.　 Behind them, clouds roll over the azure sea and amethyst mountains. Their clothing shares the same pastel hues and hazy palette of the landscape and the colour and brushwork of the girl's face echoes that of the clouds above. Just as Russell the artist straddled two worlds, one mystical and the other pragmatic, so in this painting, featuring one of his more 'earthbound' or quotidian of subjects, the influence of certain symbolist predilections and esoteric ideas still permeates. Landscape here is an expression of a psychic state, showing a deep connection between human life and the natural world. Throughout his life, Russsell spent summers in the west and northwest of Ireland especially in Sligo and Donegal, where many paintings of his were made. However, Russell lived in Dublin and this scene strongly resembles a view of Lambay Island, seen from Malahide. In the bottom right-hand corner, just decipherable is the artist's distinctive monogram. As the now legendary explanation goes, the artist originally assumed the name AEON, a Gnostic term to describe the personification of divinity. This was later shortened to the letters AE which became his lasting moniker.　 Russell's work as an artist and writer became increasingly prominent at the start of the 20th century and in 1913 several of his pieces were exhibited as part of the Armoury Show in New York; all loans from Irish art patron and collector John Quinn. His paintings can be now found in important public collections throughout Ireland including those of the Hugh Lane Gallery, Model Niland Collection, Trinity College Dublin, Armagh County Museum and The National Gallery. Pádraic E. Moore, April 2026