Adams
Los 9
James Humbert Craig, RHA RUA (1877-1944)
Unloading the Catch, Killary Harbour
Oil on board, 45.5 x 60cm (18 x 23.5")
Signed
Provenance: Sold in these room, "Important Irish Art Sale" December 2005, Lot No. 142, where purchased by current owner
Exhibited: RHA Annual Exhibition 1936, Cat. No. 112
Looking across Killary Bay from Rosroe, it shows the boats used for the treacherous waters of the Killeries. The herring industry was a major economic force in Connemara from the late 19th century until the end of World War 1. From South Connemara through Roundstone and using the railhead in the late 19th century and until the 1930s at Recess when the Galway-Clifden line was closed the herring was dried, or canned and shipped abroad. Rosroe was at the perimeter of The Marquess of Sligo's estates of which the most famous water estates is nearby at the head of Killary at Assleagh Falls and Delphi. The Lord Sligo's estate company continued to own the Assleagh Fisheries until the 1960s. The Co-operative Fishing Company continued with the Rosroe Fishery until after World War II.
The property was subsequently owned by Count Cyril McCormack for many years and some eel and herring table products were also developed by Count McCormack. The light is typical of the area and was often painted by many landscape artists because of its light reflecting properties. The agricultural practice of lazy beds by subsistence farmers was in continuous use until the 20th century as a means of producing the staple diet of the potato, and it gives the Irish landscape its particular surface appearance end in the field patterns which resulted was very attractive to painters.
J.H. Craig used a light toned palette to achieve his effects of mounting cloud forms and the reflections of the water, hills and mountains reflected in the water. It was a practice used by many artists in the Franco-Irish tradition having two sources, the English painter John Constable and the School of Barbizon painters using the smaller scale of humankind against the grand sweep of landscape and the clouds giving the sense of scale even to the smallest works. Paul Henry, Maurice MacGonigal, Kitty Wilmer O'Brien, Ann King Harman, Dorothy Blackham and Letitia Hamilton and many other artists painted in the area from the end of the 19th century and for much of the 20th. This is an unusually light coloured work of great charm and pictorial sensitivity to the great scale of nature, with the clear but small scale human figures busy in their material affairs, including in this instance, the herring nets and the clinker built herring boats, which were introduced into the area in the early 20th century, delivering the catch, as the waters were too shallow most of the time for the larger trawlers to berth at the quay and on which may be seen the drying sheds for the fish.
