Paul Henry (1876-1958)• Born 11 April 1877 -

Belfast• His father, Robert

Henry, was a Protestant preacher

• Attended Belfast School of Art

• Moved to Paris in 1898

Paris and London

• Studied in Paris under James McNeill Whistler

• Henry moved to London in 1901

• Married Grace Mitchell

• Spent 10 years working as a graphic artist, illustrator and cartoonist

• Became a member of the Fitzroy Street Group

Influences• Paul Henry was influenced by Post-Impressionists like

Van Gogh and Cézanne.

Starry Night

Hortense Fiquet in a Str iped Skirt

Post-Impressionism

The Post-Impressionists extended Impressionism by

- emphasising geometric forms,

- distorting form for expressive effect,

- using unnatural or arbitrary colour.

From Post-Impressionism Paul Henry took a blunt and uncompromising approach to the formal challenges of landscape painting

He simplified shapes and textures, reducing the visible world to its bare necessities

Influences• Influenced by Jean

Francois Millet • Barbizon School - part

of an art movement towards Realism

• From Millet, Paul Henry borrowed an interest in humble rural life, and a close study of farmers and peasant women

Achill Island• Visited Achill Island on

holiday – 1910

• Paul Henry stayed on Achill Island for 10 years

• Henry read JM Synge’s ‘Riders to the Sea’

• The play was to have an impact on how he viewed the harshness of island life

Achill Island

Work on Achill Island• Belfast 1911 Joint

Exhibition with his wife Grace

• Titled “Paintings on Irish Life”

• ‘A Prayer for the Departed’

• Comment - 'the grimness and something of the dignity of the closing scene in "Riders to the

Sea"

Belfast exhibition 1911 • ‘The Watcher’ 1911• "... You will look through this

exhibition in vain for the 'sweetly pretty' Ireland of the popular illustrators, for the chocolate-box colleen or the cardriver with his budget of comic stories. In place of the glamour of false romance you get the veracity of the thing seen; sentimentalism gives

way to stark sincerity". (“The

Northern Whig”)

Launching the Curragh 1911• Paul Henry was

deeply moved by the harshness of life on Achill Island, both the living conditions and the hardness of the

economic life.

..."the people cling with pathetic heroism to their holdings with a dumb ferocity of affection. Existence [for many of them] would be simply impossible were it not for the money coming in from [relatives in] America".

Landscapes• In later years Paul Henry moved from painting

people to landscapes without any figures in them

• One suggestion for this is that the women of Achill did not want to be sketched by Paul Henry, at least, did not want to be portrayed in the manner that he wanted

• Paul Henry castigated the young girls on Achill for turning up to model for him wearing modern silk stockings and high heeled shoes, rather than barefoot and in the everyday clothes handed down

to them by their grandmothers. (Mary Cosgrave)

Achill to Dublin • Paul and Grace Henry left Achill Island in 1919

• Their marriage had become increasingly strained

• Grace preferred an urban lifestyle

• Paul Henry found the Royal Hibernian Academy to be conservative

• The Henry’s founded the Society of Dublin Painters

• Henry achieved international recognition when “In Connemara” was used as a poster for tourism in 1925

“In Connemara”

A Connemara Village

An example of the later landscapes of Paul Henry

Painted in 1934

Paul Henry’s legacy • Paul Henry became internationally renowned

• Many of his paintings were reproduced as posters or prints

• Ironic that his paintings were used to promote tourism in the West of Ireland when he was actually distressed about the impact of tourism on Achill Island

• His pictorial naturalism continues to represent a vision of Ireland that many people regard as truly authentic.

• Paul Henry died in 1958