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Paul Henry (1876-1958) Grand Canal Dock, Ringsend, Dublin 1928 Oil on canvas 58 x 46cm (23 x 18'') Signed: 'PAUL HENRY' b.l. Exhibited: 'Paul Henry', National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 19 February - 18 May 2003, catalogue number 76 Literature: ''Paul Henry'' NGI 2003, illustrated p.105 The composition of Grand Canal Dock is based on that of a preliminary charcoal drawing by Henry of the same date (collection National Gallery of Ireland, 7601). In the closely modulated tones both the drawing and this painting show the continued influence of his erstwhile teacher, James MacNeill Whistler, on Henry at the time, an influence and clarity of thought that lingered in his work till late in his career. In the words of Brian O'Doherty, this clarity of thought brought to the best of Henry's work 'a purity, a welcome lack of literary property which gives immediacy to its perception' and which, too, makes Paul Henry's landscape important, for it 'marks the point where work that is regional and parochial in outlook is differentiated from work with more universal implications' (Brian O'Doherty, 'Paul Henry-The Early Years', University Review, vol. 22, no. 7, 1960, pp. 23, 26). The Grand Canal Dock was opened in April 1796, the canal itself linking Dublin with the river Shannon. The subject matter, an industrial landscape, is unusual in Henry's oeuvre. The charcoal drawing is reproduced in S. B. Kennedy, Paul Henry: with a catalogue of the Paintings, Drawings, Illustrations, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 2007, p.141, catalogue number 226. Dr S.B. Kennedy November 2014