LONDON, ENGLAND.- An important collection of works from the late Derek Hill’s private collection will be offered by his Estate in Sotheby’s Irish sale in London on Thursday, May 16, 2002.
Renowned for his society portraits and arresting scenes of Co. Donegal and Tory Island, Derek Hill’s contribution to 20th century Irish Art is without dispute. His long and varied career saw him embrace stage design, appointed art director of the British School in Rome, write books on Islamic architecture and orchestrate major public exhibitions such as the Landseer show at the Royal Academy in 1961.
Hill remained so personally attached to many of his paintings that he was often loath to let them go, no matter how high the price offered. So Sotheby’s sale not only provides a rare chance to see his work at auction, but also the opportunity to view the scope of Derek’s visual interests and obtain for the first time work that he had refused to relinquish while alive. Born in Southampton, Hill (1916-2000) left school aged 16, at first pursuing a career in stage design but later rejecting this for painting. In time, he established himself as a successful portrait artist of the British establishment and fashionable society, including such notable sitters as H.R.H. The Prince of Wales, Lord Mountbatten, Cecil Beaton and Noel Coward.
Landscape painting, however, remained his first love and in 1954 he bought St Colombs – a house in Churchill, Co. Donegal. Living in the northwest of Ireland fired his imagination, as did his 'discovery' in 1956 of Tory Island, off the Donegal coast, and it was here that his landscape painting truly came into its own. Hill purchased a hut on the island and for the next 30 years, produced some of his most evocative works.
The seclusion of Tory suited Hill. He was a man who enjoyed his own company and it was arguably this factor and his measured acceptance of it, that contributed to his ability to draw on the starkness and loneliness of such places to develop his craft and produce his most striking work. Later, when Hill travelled the world – visiting Turkey, Yemen and Afghanistan – his observations recall the light, colour and structure observed on this weather-beaten island.
Experiencing the solitary world of Hill firsthand through works in the sale, it is easy to empathise with the artist. His paintings often adopt a very intimate nature and his rugged and expansive landscape entitled From my hut, Tory Island, Co. Donegal proves no exception. It is estimated to fetch £6,000-8,000.
Achill, off the remote west coast, was one of the first areas of Ireland that Hill visited immediately after the Second World War. Clearly captivated by the island, Hill described Achill Island, View from Gubmore as “romantic because the place felt romantic”. It is estimated at £1,200-1,800.
A self-portrait of Hill depicted as a young man (est: £2,000-3,000) joins another image of the artist painted by Cecil Beaton, inscribed To/Derek and executed in circa 1950 (est: £1,200-1,800).
Hill painted H.R.H. The Prince of Wales on a several occasions, initially painting the Prince for Trinity, his former college at Cambridge. A painting of Prince Charles relaxing in the sun on one of the many painting trips they were to enjoy together, is estimated at £1,200-1,600. Hill once commented on his hope that his portraits conveyed the Prince’s “warm, sensitive and understanding humanity: a concern and interest in whatever he undertakes”.
The collection of the late Derek Hill joins a highly important sale of Irish art including works by Sir William Orpen, Louis le Brocquy, Charles Lamb, Walter Frederick Osborne, James Humbert Craig, Gerard Dillon, Jack B. Yeats, Sir John Lavery and Roderic O’Conor (see separate release). This year, a sale of Irish Belleek porcelain, Glass and Silver will take place at Sotheby’s Olympia on the morning of May 16.
