Norah McGuinness and Arthur Twells works go under hammer

‘Mulroy,’ a mixed media work by the late Norah McGuinness, is one of the lots going under the hammer. It is being offered for sale with a starting range of between €1,250 and €1,450.

McGuinness, who died in 1980, was born in Derry in 1901 and studied at the ‘Tech’ before moving to Dublin where she trained under Harry Clarke and Patrick Tuohy.

She was an associate of influential Irish modernist Mainie Jellett and on the latter’s advice travelled to Paris in 1929 to study under the French cubist André Lhote.

After Paris she moved to England and became a member of the avant-garde London Group.

From 1937 to 1939 she lived in New York but returned to Ireland and settled in Dublin.

McGuinness founded the Irish Exhibition of Living Art in 1943 and became its president in 1944.

She represented Ireland in the 1950 Venice Biennale, and was elected an honorary member of the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1957, but later resigned.

Her work is included in the collections of the National Gallery of Ireland, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery and the National Library of Ireland, together with private and corporate collections worldwide.

Three works by Arthur Twells, a British artist who was born in Nottingham in 1921 but settled in Derry, also feature in the Dolan’s summer auction.

Twells - an acclaimed landscape painter - worked in textile design for a time before joining the Navy. It was through his service as a seaman that he ended up in Derry where he settled down.

He had a studio in Shipquay Street in the 1960s.

‘Mending the nets,’ €1,200 - €1,500, ‘Fishing Nets, Connemara,’ €750 - €850, ‘Approaching Showers, Derryclare, Connemara,’ €600 - €800, are three stunning oils on canvas from the adopted Derry man who died in 1996. Twells is famous for his stunning landscapes set in the north west and west of Ireland.

Bidding in the Dolan’s timed online summer auction closes on Monday, August 16, at 6.30 pm.