Harry Aaron Kernoff
, English, 1900-1974
Title
Davy Byrne's Pub, Dublin, from the BaileyDate1941
MediumOil on board
Dimensions
76 x 61 cm
Signedlower right: Kernoff
Credit LinePurchased, 2000
Object numberNGI.4677
DescriptionProvenancePrivate collection; purchased, Sotheby's, London, 18 May 2000, lot 173Exhibition HistoryRoyal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, 1975, cat.1
Taking Stock: Acquisitions 2000-2010, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 13 March 2010 - 25 July 2010
Label TextKernoff depicted Dublin’s so-called 'Literary Pubs' as places of social and cultural importance where poets, writers, artists, journalists and intellectuals congregated. Asserting his own membership of this community, he includes himself here, instantly recognisable in spectacles and trilby. Two playbills, visible behind the bar, point to the role of the pubs in the promotion of the theatre. One advertises Brinsley MacNamara’s Look at the Heffernans at the Abbey, the other Lord Longford’s production of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet at the Gate, a witty juxtaposition of comedy and tragedy.