IRISH ARTIST CONOR HARRINGTON AT BONHAMS

CORK born Street Artist CONOR HARRINGTON among the TOP 10 LOTS : Bonhams Pop x Culture Auction including, BANKSY, DAMIEN HIRST & ANDY WALHOL, lot 45 £50,000/£70,000, 8th October New Bond Street, London

https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/26447/

CONOR HARRINGTON (IRISH, BORN 1980)

L'Amour et La Violence, 2013
signed, titled and dated on the reverse
oil, spray paint and gold leaf on linen
200 x 250cm (78 3/4 x 98 7/16in).

£50,000/£70,000

'The loveliest thing ever made by an Irishman.' THOMAS BODKIN (DIRECTOR OR NATIONAL GALLERY OF IRELAND, 1927-35), IN REFERENCE TO CLARKE'S 'GENEVA WINDOW'

@Sothebys 9th September Auction, Irish Art including property from the Collection of Sir Michael Smurfit such as the stunning Playboy of the Western World” by Harry Clarke -

Detailed catalogue note below

The present work is a design for The Geneva Window (1929) (fig. 1), which Harry Clarke was commissioned to make as a gift from the Irish government for the International Labour Building of the League of Nations in Geneva. The window consists of eight panels illustrating the work of fifteen early twentieth-century Irish writers. Here, Clarke takes inspiration from J. M. Synge's The Playboy of the Western World (fig. 2), the three-act play first performed at the Abbey Theatre in 1907, and which caused a public outcry at the time. Clarke's window itself proved too controversial owing to the writers and images Clarke chose for it - in 1930 the Irish government rejected it for fear of causing offence and thus the window was never installed as intended.