A Family (painting)
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| A Family | |
|---|---|
.jpg) | |
| Artist | Louis le Brocquy |
| Year | 1950–1951 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 147 cm × 185 cm (57.8 in × 72.8 in) |
| Location | National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin |
A Family is a 1951 oil on canvas painting by Irish artist Louis le Brocquy. It depicts a woman half-lying on a table and gazing out at the viewer accompanied by a cat in the foreground, a man sitting hunched over in the background, and a child holding a bouquet of flowers on one side, gazing at the woman. The painting's stark grey colour palette and its portrayal of dejection within the family unit attracted strong criticism from some contemporaries in post-war Ireland, while others praised the artist's willingness to address the problems of the time in the work. It is currently on display in The National Gallery of Ireland.
Depicting a stark human condition in the aftermath of World War II, Síghle Bhreathnach-Lynch, Curator of Irish Art at the National Gallery of Ireland notes: 'The mother, lying on a table, leaning on one arm, stares out with quiet dignity while a menacing looking cat peers out from beneath the draw sheet. In the background the father sits, head bowed, in a pose suggesting total dejection. He appears to be oblivious to the small child holding a bunch of flowers; a symbol of hope. The three sombrely-painted figures inhabit a grey concrete bunker, lit by a bare bulb. The theme of this disturbingly bleak work is the nature of individual isolation and the breakdown of societal norms.'[1]
A Family belongs to the artist's Grey Period (1951–55). Widely acknowledged as the artist's masterpiece from this period, the painting marks a shift in palette from the comparatively colourful work of the late forties to predominant whites and greys. The art critic John Berger writes in Art News and Review: 'His style has developed and changed; his colours are pale and severe - the Family is mostly grey; his forms, in their movement both across and into the picture, are precise. This finesse implies - because le Brocquy's motive is always human - a tenderness which is not sentimental, and a sense of wonder which is exact; one thinks twice about the quite ordinary but in fact miraculous construction of any man's back, having looked at the father in the Family.'[2]
According to the art critic John Russell: 'In the early 1950s, above all, he came before us as a man who was looking for the image that would compound all other images. Anyone who was around at the time and concerned with what was called "post-war British art" will remember the painting called "A Family".'[3] Louis le Brocquy explains: 'I have always been fascinated by the horizontal monumentality of traditional Odalisque painting, the reclining woman depicted voluptuously by one Master after another throughout the history of European art - Titians' Venus of Urbino, Velázquez' Rokeby Venus turning her back on the Spanish Court, Goya's Maja clothed and unclothed, Ingres' Reclining Odalisque in her seraglio and finally the great Olympia of Édouard Manet celebrating his favourite model, Victorine Meurent. My own painting A Family was conceived in 1950 in very different circumstances in face of the atomic threat, social upheaval and refugees of World War II and its aftermath. The elements in its composition correspond in some ways to those of Olympia, if not to Manet's cool sensuality. The female figure in A Family may be seen to take on a very different significance. The man, replacing Manet's black servant with bouquet, sits alone. The bouquet is reduced to a mere wisp held by a child. The Olympian black cat in turn becomes white, ominously emerging from the sheets. This is how A Family appears to me today. Fifty years ago it was painted while contemplating a human condition stripped back to Palaeolithic circumstance under electric light bulbs.'[4]
History
The painting was first exhibited in London at Gimpel Fils in June 1951, where it received considerable praise.[5][6] In 1952, a group of art patrons offered to present the painting to the Hugh Lane Gallery, but the gift was rejected by the Art Advisory Committee on the grounds of "incompetence." The rejection prompted public disputes among artists and art critics which reflected divided opinions on the merits of modern art. Over time, attitudes towards the painting grew more positive. In June 1956 Louis le Brocquy represented Ireland at the Venice Biennale and A Family was awarded the Nestlé-endowed Premio Aquisitato. At the 1958 World Fair in Brussels, it was recognized for its historical impact in the exhibition Cinquante Ans d'Art Moderne ("Fifty Years of Modern Art").[1]
In 2002, A Family entered the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Ireland as a gift of Lochlann and Brenda Quinn.[7] It was the first painting to ever enter the Gallery's permanent collection while its artist was still living. The curator of the gallery, Síghle Bhreathnach-Lynch, commented that "A Family is rightly recognized as a seminal painting in the history of 20th-century Irish art. It is not only an important transitional work in the artist's oeuvre but one anticipating modernism as an everyday style in Irish art."[1]