The current circumstances haven’t managed to curtail all businesses – those with a strong digital presence are enjoying the privilege of being able to remain connected to the world and its customers.
One such company is Morgan O’Driscoll, an Irish auction house whose ‘Irish & International Online Auction’ is proceeding as normal, with bidding closing on Tuesday 14 April. Although viewing is available only online or by appointment, purchased items are available for collection by appointment or by shipping – the auction house is continuing to offer package and delivery services to anywhere in the world without disruption.
Their auction catalogue features over 150 exemplary artworks, with pieces by revered artists such as Paul Henry, Salvador Dalí, George Barret, Ivon Hitchens and Damien Hirst, and ranging in price from as little as a few hundred pounds to several hundred thousand pounds.
One of the most outstanding pieces on offer is without a doubt Paul Henry’s Celtic Cross in a West of Ireland Landscape from c.1929. Henry (1877-1958) was an Irish artist known for his depictions of the West of Ireland landscape in a spare, Post-Impressionist style. Although the present scene is imagined, it certainly intended to represent the West of Ireland, and it features Henry’s delicate brushwork, restrained impasto and harmonious use of colour, for which he is most noted.
George Barret (1730-1784) is another Irish landscape artist. His work, A Landscape with Figures and the Ruins, from c. 1770, presents the presbytery and flanking transepts of the great monastery of Montrose Abbey in the Scottish borders.
It is a large and impressive historic work and depicts the soft, hazy colours for which Barret was known. It is not hard to see how, when he left Ireland in 1762, Barret managed to establish himself as an artist in London and rapidly gain recognition as a leading artist of the period.
Another exemplary artwork, but from a contemporary household name, is British Altar (from Sanctum) by Damien Hirst. From early on, mortality has been an obsessive theme of the critically-acclaimed artist, as demonstrated by the work Hirst has completed of butterflies. He is fascinated by their incredibly brief, colourful lives, and in this series knits the coloured patterns of butterfly wings into symmetrical stained glass-like arrangements.
And Morgan O’Driscoll’s sale isn’t limited to the two-dimensional: plenty of sculptures are available for purchase, too.
Stand-outs in this category include Wild Swans at Coole, a 2018 work by John Behan, the bronze work Nuada by Anthony Scott, Sitting Hare by Stephen McKeown, and Salvador Dalí’s 1981 Spanish Rhinoceros Dressed in Lace. Dalí’s interest in rhinoceroses stemmed from Dürer's celebrated etching of the animal. Dali claimed a connection between the growth pattern of the rhinoceros's horn, the pattern sewn in Vermeer's The Lacemaker and in the growth pattern of the sunflower. All of these speculative connections come into play in his sculpture.
Finally, we’d be remiss to skip the three balloon animals available by contemporary master Jeff Koons, including Balloon Swan (Yellow), Balloon Monkey (Blue) and Balloon Rabbit (Red).
Koons is of course the most expensive living artist: he was dubbed with this title in May 2013 when his large-scale Balloon Dog in orange sold for $58.4 million (£45.64 mil) at Christie's. Five years later, in November 2018, David Hockney dethroned the American artist when Hockney’s Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) achieved $90.3 million (£70.57 mil) at auction. Hockney’s title was short lived, however. Koons’ Rabbit, an original stainless steel inflatable from the mid-1980s, sold for $91.1 million (£71.2 mil) in May 2019. This record is yet to be beaten.
Fortunately, Morgan O’Driscoll’s Koons variants are of a slightly more affordable scale.