Paul Henry 1867 - 1958

Belfast-born artist Paul Henry (1876-1958) lived and worked on Achill Island for a decade, from 1910-1919, and continued to produce Achill landscapes in later life. His works, particularly the landscapes of Achill Island and Connemara, came to typify a vision of Ireland that was prevalent in the early years of the new Irish Free State.

Paul Henry was one of four boys born to a Belfast Protestant preacher, the Rev Robert Mitchell Henry. Paul came from a long line of Protestant preachers, and his maternal grandfather - Rev Thomas Berry - actually preached the Gospel on Achill Island in the mid-1830s. It is likely that Rev Berry was part of the Protestant Mission established on Achill Island in the 1930’s by the Rev Edward Nagle. Despite the family’s religious beliefs

The Road to the Mountains
by Paul Henry

Paris at the turn of the 20th century was the centre of the artistic avant-garde, home to artists such as Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec as well as some notable Irish writers, including W.B. Yeats and the unpuplished J.M. Synge in the late 1890s, Oscar Wilde and, between 1902 and 1903, James Joyce. Paul Henry, who had studied as an artist in Belfast, enrolled in a studio run by the painter James McNeill Whistler. According to S.B. Kennedy’s excellent book on Paul Henry (’Paul Henry’), the young artist was impressed by Millet and his focus on ordinary people in the countryside going about their everyday lives. Later Paul Henry turned to the avant-garde artists such as Cezanne, Van Gogh and Gauguin for their vitality, colour and energy. As Kennedy describes it:

“…In the silence and solitude of Arles and the Midi, Cezanne and Van Gogh were feverishly painting … They were painting with an inner vision. They took visible nature, and by an alchemy distilled by themselves, turned it into something entirely different. An inspired alchemy, an inspired transmutation. Cezanne and Van Gogh saw clearly because they had cast aside all the theories and prejudices of the Schools and were looking at nature as if for the first time, and above all seeing it with emotion.” I’v always had a liking to Paul Henry and his work. It’s not the liviest of work, but he was very commited to the landscape and it’s folk, especially in Connemara. If you like this artist i reccommend the book written by: S.B. Kennedy. I actually have it. It really has lovely photos and great writing about his childhood right through to the end of his life.