DUBLIN.- Whyte’s auction of Irish & International art promises to deliver another exciting opportunity for collectors to acquire rare artworks of outstanding quality and enduring value. On Monday 29 September 2025 the auction has 152 lots of Irish & International art valued at €1.2 million.

The live auction will take place at the Freemasons Hall, Molesworth Street, Dublin 2 and online at bid.whytes.ie. Viewing takes place at Whyte’s Galleries in Molesworth Street from Monday 22 September to Friday 26 September, 10am to 5pm, Saturday and Sunday 27 & 28 September, 1pm to 5pm and Monday 29 September – day of sale - 10am to 4pm. Bidders and browsers can avail of useful auction features on Whytes.ie such as extra photographs of each work, including in domestic settings, as well the free Art Realizer App allowing you to project pictures to scale on walls to see if a work will suit your home or office; frame sizes and condition notes for every lot are published on our website, and, most importantly, Whyte’s provide a lifetime guarantee for every lot in the sale.

The cover lot and top lot by value, Louis le Brocquy’s Image of Samuel Beckett, 1980 [Lot 61, €100,000-€150,000], is one of six portraits of Beckett first shown at the Rosc ’80. While this body of paintings has been referred to as portraits, the artist sought rather to reflect some essence of the individual he addressed, seeking to demonstrate the 'Beckettness of Beckett' to use his own words. In the current painting, Beckett's features are familiar, notably the 'arctic blue' colour of his eyes and the craggy bone structure of the face. However, this painting focuses particularly on the eyes, which seem absorbed in some inner process, while the dark, deep sockets infer a haunting vulnerability and empathy. This powerful oil deserves to be viewed ‘in the flesh’ to be fully appreciated.

For the younger children of Mrs Evelyn St George, William Orpen was avuncular. Known as 'Woppy' to Ferris and his sister, Vivien, in the years preceding the Great War, he was almost a member of the family. In a story that has often been told, Orpen would go on to form a liaison with Mrs St George during the years when both their marriages were under strain, and Ferris and Vivien were born. Contact was undoubtedly facilitated by Orpen's appointment as visiting lecturer at the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin in October 1907, and later, by the St Georges' move to England. In the present portrait, Ferris Blight St. George, c. 1921, [lot 18, €60,000-€80,000] we confront a talented young batsman, his sleeves rolled, and collar turned up as though he has arrived in the studio, straight from the crease. Delicate fingers clasped over the handle of his bat, and a face carefully lit, indicate that this is both a sensitive lad and one who was polished and was learning inscrutability.

Mainie Jellett’s Abstract Composition [lot 41, €18,000-€22,000, illustrated above] is undated but stylistically would tie in with her work of the late 1920s and early 1930s. It displays Jellett's absorptions of the Cubist technique of translation and rotation but incorporates a colour range and form that evokes the Madonna and child image. In her essay, Mainie Jellett: Translating Cubism, Dr Riann Coulter argued that, 'The hostility that Jellett encountered in 1923 did not break her resolve to convert Ireland to the Modernist cause, but it did make her realise that, in order to communicate with a wider Irish public, she would have to adapt’. The present painting exhibits these three elements of Jellett's later work - Cubist, religious and Celtic - that helped ingratiate her work to Irish audiences and ultimately place her within the history books as a leader of the modern art movement in Ireland.

Lot 19, Illuminated Address to Jim Brindley for his 50 Years Service to the Ward Union Hunt, 1916 [€10,000-€15,000] is a rare and exquisite example of Harry Clarke's original illustrations in pen and ink with gold leaf. The borders of the address are profusely decorated with layers of patterning visible from the faintly applied decoration against the yellow background through to the heaviest, velvety black inks which punctuate the design. A sense of pageantry is created in the upper margin where a framed horseshoe, representing good luck, and a stag's head, representing the hunt and prestige, are flanked by horses with medieval style riders holding up heralding trumpets. Spiralling tendrils of foliage, plumes and flowers together with other hunting motifs and intricate patterning in check, dots and stripes, all come together to create an artwork that is inimitably Harry Clarke.

In 1921 Pádraic Ó Conaire, the Irish language writer and journalist, encouraged Charles Lamb to visit the west of Ireland. While there he visited the coastal village of Carraroe, a Gaeltacht (primarily Irish-speaking) community, which would later become the artist's permanent home. In Carraroe Lamb and his wife Katherine lived sustainably off their land in a home - built by local tradesmen - that would become an artistic hub attracting numerous artists. The Poteen Makers [lot 26, €15,000-€20,000] was purchased directly from the artist at his studio in the early 1960s, when his style had become more fluid and his depictions of people and places were more impressionistic than specific. The scene is a fascinating insight into the Irish rural cottage interior. In the upper left corner hangs a picture, likely the sacred heart, with a set of rosary beads hanging from its simple cross frame. To the right, a circular-shaped basket, possibly a 'ciseog' (used for straining and serving potatoes) hangs, while on the floor beneath stands a square-shaped basket with handles holding what might be three 'sleán' or spades used for cutting turf.

In Connemara [lot 27, €90,000-€120,000] is painted on a board by Paul Henry in the open air (en plein air). The skill and confidence with which the artist was able to incorporate his knowledge of classical training and modern techniques is impressive. Three cottages by the sea viewed from above are located in the bottom third of the image. The mountain and sky are in the background. The sun is hidden and the colours are subdued with an overall effect of a scene glimpsed through rain and mist on a windy, overcast day. The freedom and spontaneity that this little sketch demonstrates was learnt by Henry in Paris. The technique derives from the ébauche stage of the academic system of painting that affected the practice of landscape painting in particular and led to the development of Impressionism. Henry’s genius lay in amalgamating his artist’s eye with this training whilst still leaving space for the emotion to dwell in. At the same time he was painting what he saw and what people recognised, a new realism in Irish art.

Dan O'Neill's career and reputation developed, especially in the 1940s, during his time with the Victor Waddington Gallery in Dublin. During that favourable decade and beyond, the artist explored a number of favourite themes - among them the emotional interaction of figures. In Girl with a Headscarf [lot 46, €15,000-€20,000] the subject’s face is fixed in an intense stare and gazing directly at the artist and in turn at the viewer. O'Neill has beautifully modelled her face which is lit on her left side by moonlight, while her right cheek is cast with a glowing red shadow. Her oval and deep-set dark eyes are captivating. By his skilful, and sensuous use of white, pink and blue, he has registered the web-like characteristics of her veil and charged it with a luminous tactile, other worldly, quality.

Roderic O’Conor’s Self-Portrait, c.1919-20 (lot 12, €70,000-€90,000) is distinguished amongst his other six self-portraits by showing him in his late fifties with its well-lit face, turned directly towards the daylight rather than at right angles to it. The artist's grey, almost white shock of hair picks up some bluish tones, but the face is much warmer thanks to the rich pink, apricot and red tones with which it has been painted or rather trowelled on using a palette knife that endows the features with an almost sculpted prominence.

Watch out for… a collection of William Percy French watercolours (lots 1-6, estimates range from €2,000 to €10,000, which include a set of 9, likely part of an artist’s album similar to an example sold through these rooms on 24 November 2008 which fetched €54,000. Driving the First Pile, 1919, by James Humbert Craig (lot 29, €8,000-€12,000) is thought to show the opening ceremony of the East Yard at Harland & Wolff, Belfast, circa 1916. The White Start Liner 'Olympic' (sister ship to the 'Titanic') which was in the port at the time is seen in the background. There is an offering of international works by artists such as Howard Hodgkin, Philip Jackson, Rodolfo Morales, Rufino Tomayo, Abraham Hulk and Hermann Corrodi. There is a sculpture section including some of Ireland’s best-known artists such as Rowan Gillespie, John Behan, Patrick O’Reilly and Michael Warren. Auction favourites include Ciaran Clear, Liam O’Neill, Cecil Maguire, Arthur Maderson and a number of examples from the ever-popular Graham Knuttel and Markey Robinson.