Joseph Malachy Kavanagh, Irish, 1856-1918
Title: The Hôtel Beaumanoir's Portal, Dinan
Date: 1883
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
56 x 38 cm
Signed: lower left: Kavanagh 1883
Credit Line: Purchased, 1950
Object Number: NGI.1194
ProvenancePurchased, Dawson Gallery, Dublin, 1950
Exhibition HistoryRoyal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, 1884
The Irish Impressionists, Irish Artists in France and Belgium, 1850-1914, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 9 October - 18 November 1984; Ulster Museum, Belfast, 1 February - 10 March 1985
Peintres Irlandais en Bretange, Musée Pont-Aven, Pont-Aven, 26 June - 27 September 1999
The Irish Impressionists, Irish Artists in France and Belgium, 1850-1914, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 9 October - 18 November 1984; Ulster Museum, Belfast, 1 February - 10 March 1985
Peintres Irlandais en Bretange, Musée Pont-Aven, Pont-Aven, 26 June - 27 September 1999
Label TextKavanagh studied alongside Nathaniel Hill and Walter Osborne in Dublin before moving on with them to the Académie Royale des Beaux Arts in Antwerp, and in turn to Brittany. This painting of the fifteenth-century gate of the Hôtel Beaumanoir in Dinan is strikingly similar to a study Osborne made on the same visit in 1883. Kavanagh’s paintings often resembled Osborne’s, though his palette was darker, with more pronounced shadows, and his drawing slightly less refined. He included the motif of a single figure with a walking stick and satchel in several paintings.