ALLEGORY by Louis Le Brocquy HRHA 1916-2012

Louis Le Brocquy, HRHA 1916-2012ALLEGORYAubusson Tapestry, (180x 225cm), signed and dated 50 (woven),Tabard Freres & Soeurs, No. 1352 label verso, Louis le Brocquy HRHA (b.1916) Allegory Aubusson tapestry, 180 x 220cm (70.75 x 86.6'') Signed and dated '50 (woven) Edition Tabard Freres & Soeurs Exhibited: Louis le Brocquy, A Family and Other New Works, Gimpel Fils London, 1951 Louis le Brocquy, Waddington Galleries, Dublin 1951 Recent Paintings and Tapestries by Louis le Brocquy, Gimpel Fils, London 1955 Goulding Collection, The Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin 1961 Louis le Brocquy, Seven Tapestries, The Dawson Gallery, Dublin 1966; Ulster Museum, Belfast 1967 Reproduced: Louis le Brocquy with His Tapestries, House and Garden, August 1951 Contemporary Tapestries from France and Britain, W.J. Strachan, the Studio, Dec. 1955 Louis le Brocquy, Seven Tapestries, The Dawson Gallery, Dublin 1966; Ulster Museum Belfast 1967 Louis le Brocquy, Dorothy Walker, Introd. John Russell, Ward River Press, Dublin 1981; Hodder & Stroughton, London 1982 It is remarkable that the international reputation acquired by Louis le Brocquy as a designer of tapestries was solely based on seven initial works, including Allegory, designed some fifty years ago. These are the years which span his 'grey' period in painting, during which he completed his largest canvas, A Family, which was awarded a major prize at the Venice Biennale in 1956. Allegory is the artist's third tapestry design following Travellers (1948) and Garlanded Goat (1949-50), it is contemporary with A Family, but the theme is treated with gaiety and with monumentality, surprising in its modest dimensions. A relationship may be perceived between the paintings of this period and the tapestry, not evidently in colour or mood, but clearly in drawing and in its characteristic planes. Allegorical allusions appear to include a sun, a moon, the winding of a skein of vermillion wool and the emergence of a child. The tapestry belongs to a series of early weavings that vary in colour and size from later versions woven within the same edition of ten by the experts Lissiers of the 17th Century firm of Tabard Frere et Soeurs in Aubusson, France. It is held that no artist from these islands has shown a deeper understanding of the medium of tapestry than Louis le Brocquy.