Morgan O'Driscoll Irish & International Art Auction 29th April 2019

22 16 Letitia Marion Hamilton RHA (1878-1964) Roundstone Harbour, Connemara signed with initials lower left oil on canvas 51 x 61.5cm (20 x 24in) Provenance: Dawson Gallery, Dublin (framing label verso); Private Collection €15,000-€20,000 ($16,853-$22,471) (£12,711-£16,949) In the early nineteenth century, George Petrie and other artists began to explore the West of Ireland, including the coast of Connemara, in a search for a ‘real’ Ireland, one relatively untouched by modern technology and urbanisation. The village of Roundstone, with its pier and backdrop of mountains and sea, became a favourite destination for landscape and genre painters. Nowadays, Roundstone is easily accessible by road, but even in nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the railway terminus at Clifden, and a branch line to Recess, placed it within reach for holidays and painting trips. Tourism became an important part of the local economy—as it is today—and a market developed for landscape paintings, notably views of Roundstone itself. Many artists were attracted to the area; In the late 1940’s, George Campbell and Gerard Dillon shared a cottage on Inishlackan Island, near Roundstone. Arthur Armstrong and Nano Reid were also visitors, while Maurice MacGonigal, President of the RHA, regarded it as his favourite part of Connemara. His funeral in 1979 was held in Roundstone, with William Orpen’s palette placed on the coffin. Having studied under Orpen, at the Metropolitcan School of Art in Dublin, Hamilton’s love of Roundstone is another link in this chain. Other artists who painted in the village include Hilda Roberts and Cecil Maguire; the writer Kate O’Brien lived nearby, while in more recent years, cartographer Tim Robinson has lived and worked, with a studio on the pier. Hamilton’s depiction of Roundstone captures the atmosphere of an ideal Irish country village, with a donkey and cart, no motor traffic whatsoever and the sun shining on the white-painted houses. In the background, looking north, the Twelve Bens are visible across Cashel Bay. Another view by Hamilton, this time showing the village in rainy weather, Soft Day at Roundstone , is in the Williamson Art Gallery in Birkenhead. She painted many views of Roundstone; the earlier ones characterised by an almost conscious naivety and hesitant approach, while later examples are joyous celebrations of the material substance of oil paint, with the artist mixing colours and applying them to the canvas with skill and controlled abandon. This painting probably dates from the 1950’s, when Hamilton was at her most confident. Born in 1878 in Hamwood House, Dunboyne, county Meath, Letitia Marion Hamilton was the younger sister of the portrait painter Eva Hamilton, and a cousin of the watercolourist Rose Barton. Both she and Eva started out by exhibiting with the Watercolour Society of Ireland. In 1907, aged twenty-nine, Letitia enrolled at the Metropolitan School of Art, where her tutor was William Orpen. She went on to further studies, firstly at London Chelsea Polytechnic in London, and then Belgium, under Frank Brangwyn. She was awarded a Board of Education silver medal in 1912, for an enameled metal panel. In addition to exhibiting regularly at the Royal Hibernian Academy from 1909 onwards (she was elected a member in 1944), Hamilton was a founder member of the Dublin Painters Gallery in 1920. Two years later her painting Bog of Allen was exhibited at the Irish Exhibition in Paris. Hamilton lived for a time in Sligo, before moving back to Dublin, firstly to Palmerston, and later to Dunsinea House in Castleknock. In 1923, she and Eva made the first of several painting trips to Italy and the Adriatic coast. In Ireland, most of her landscapes are of scenes around Roundstone in Connemara, Dunmanus Bay in West Cork, and County Donegal. She also painted fair days in midland towns such as Castlepollard, and hunting scenes. Her style was influenced by Raoul Dufy and French artists of the 1930’s, and her paintings are characterized by thick impasto, and a delicate sense of tone and colour. She had also studied with Anne St. John Partridge in France, where she developed her light Impressionist palette and expressive use of paint. PeterMurray, March 2019