Louis le Brocquy HRHA (1916-2012)Uccello (1999) Aubusson tapestry, 154 x 230cm (60½ x 90½'')Signed and numbered 2/9; also signed, titled and inscribed on the Tapisserie d'Aubusson certificate attached to the tapestry versoAtelier René Duché ed.A beautifully simple and elegantly sophisticated tapestry by one of the most celebrated Irish artists of the 20th century, as well known for his achievements in tapestry and the graphic arts as for his painting. Jewel-like oranges appear in a cloud of greenery against a deep blue sky. Le Brocquy, who initially studied chemistry with an eye to entering the family business, the Greenmount Oil Company in Harold’s Cross, Dublin, harboured a passion for art. With his mother Sybil’s encouragement, he set off to explore the possibility of pursuing an artistic career. He studied by visiting the great European galleries and he proved to have tremendous natural facility as a painter, becoming a central figure in progressive cultural circles in 1940s Dublin.He responded with enthusiasm when The Edinburgh Tapestry Weavers invited him, with other distinguished artists, to design a tapestry in 1948. He was, though, less than satisfied with the technique whereby skilled tapestry weavers took a painted cartoon and effectively made their own copy of it. Rather, he warmed to the pre-Renaissance technique, as espoused by Jean Lurçat, who he greatly admired, whereby the artist created a detailed, colour-coded, precisely delineated template, which the weavers followed exactly. The weavers at Atelier Tabard at Aubusson were the best practitioners of this method, and le Brocquy embarked on a long, fruitful collaborative relationship with them at the Atelier René Duché.Le Brocquy was particularly interested in the emotional power of colour, and tapestry, once his intentions were followed to the letter, seemed to him to be the ideal medium for using colour effectively and accurately. The immediate inspiration for his tapestry Uccello was a painting he had long admired by the artist, one of three exceptional works based on The Battle of San Romano. Paulo Uccello was enraptured by the power of perspective and le Brocquy appreciated his mastery in the superbly poised, curiously abstracted arrangement of men, arms and horses in the painting, but he was also particularly struck by “the recurrent emergence of oranges, appearing like small suns from their dark foliage.” He thought of this detail when, soon after he had seen the Uccello, he was in the French frontier town of Menton in 1939, he noticed the oranges, “unbelievably exotic, blazing from their small trees on the sidewalks.”Aidan Dunne, February 2020.