Southern Window

Artist Louis le Brocquy (1916 - 2012)

Date1939

MediumOil on panel

Dimensions53.3 x 45.7 cm

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LineCollection & image © Hugh Lane Gallery. Donated by the Thomas Haverty Trust, 1940. © The Estate of Louis le Brocquy.

Object number860

DescriptionA self-taught artist, Louis le Brocquy was born in Dublin in 1916. It was only at the age of twenty-two, after studying chemistry at Trinity College Dublin, that he decided to become a painter. He taught himself by copying from the works of some of the great masters among them Whistler, Manet, Degas, Velazquez and Goya. The influence of these artists and Japanese wood block prints (Ukiyo-e) led to a fascination with tone and in the 1940s he executed a number of almost monochromatic paintings. It was also from this time that the essential subject matter of le Brocquy's paintings can be traced, namely the isolation of the individual, a theme which occupies his work to this day. The solitary figure of the elderly lady with her back to us conveys this sense of isolation while the soft light which pervades the composition and the richness of the shadows reveal his interest in tone. Painted in Menton in 1939 'Southern Window' is perhaps his earliest surviving work.

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