Whyte’s RDS Irish & International Art Sale

By collectireland on February 11, 2019

Royal Dublin Society, Anglesea Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin .4.

A sale full of quality and many of the big names of Irish Art are represented.

Amongst the 211 Lots are fine landscapes by William Percy French, James Humbert Craig, Paul Henry, Maurice Canning Wilks, portraits by William Orpen, Seán O’Sullivan, Paul Nietsche, and Harry Kernoff. There’s also a fair dollop of Abstract rubbish in the sale including two Jack B Yeats works both of which carry the top estimates in the sale of €100,000 – €150,000 and which will undoubtedly reach or surpass their reserves.

Lot.9.”A Kerry Bog” 1934/35, oil on canvas (16″ x 18″) by Paul Henry which carries an estimate of €60/80,000.

Lot.19. “A Passage is Required” 1953, oil on board (9″ x 14″) by Jack Butler Yeats – Est: €100/150,000.

The star of the sale, for me, is the Harry Kernoff portrait of Aer Lingus Pilot, Captain John Tweddle (pictured below) which has an interesting back story.

Born in 1917, John Lawson Tweddle was a keen sportsman, winning medals for activities as diverse as diving and athletics, and being capped for Ulster rugby on at least four occasions. During World War II he served with the RAF and was made Flight Lieutenant. After the war, he worked for Aer Lingus and was one of the first pilots to fly BAC 1-11 jets in the early sixties. He was a close friend of Harry Kernoff. The painting comes with a copy of a 1965 newspaper article from the Daily Express, featuring Captain Tweddle who was shortly to appear in a musical. The paper reported that Tweddle (the “Singing Skipper”) was being allowed a week’s leave from Aer Lingus in order to play the part of Sultan Ali Ben Ali in the airline company’s own production of the “Desert Song”. Ref.Whytes.