Footnotes

Provenance
Sale; James Adams in association with Bonhams & Brooks, 13 December 2000, lot 94, where acquired by the present owner
Private Collection, U.K.

Exhibited
New York, Hackett Gallery, Paintings by Paul Henry, 10-22 March 1930, cat.no.26
Boston, Grace Horne's Gallery, Paintings of Ireland by Irish Artists, 31 March-18 April 1930, cat.no.20
Dublin, The National Gallery of Ireland, Paul Henry, 19 February-18 May 2003, cat.no.79

Literature
Boston Evening Transcript, 5 April 1930, p.7 (ill.)
S.B. Kennedy, Paul Henry, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2000, pp.96-97
S.B. Kennedy, Paul Henry: Paintings, Drawings, Illustrations, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2007, p.239 (col.ill.)

Paul Henry's work captures the spirit and landscape of the west of Ireland in a manner which is quite unparalleled. Having first visited Achill in 1910, where he was captivated by the beauty of the region, he never grew tired of returning to it and portraying its majesty in changing seasons and views. As S.B. Kennedy has commented, 'Almost single-handedly Paul Henry defined a view of the Irish landscape, in particular that of the west, that remains as convincing to modern eyes as it was in his own time. Like Constable's Suffolk and Cézanne's Provence, once experienced it is difficult to see the landscape of the west other than through Henry's eyes' (S.B. Kennedy, Paul Henry, National Gallery of Ireland exhibition catalogue, 2003, p.5).

The Milk Cart is a rare composition for Henry, a painter more commonly recognised for his pure landscape arrangements, and references all that is desirable from the artist but significantly, also offers a human element as the central focus. Henry's typical technique has been employed to good effect here in that most of the narrative has been kept to the lower half of the picture while the sky, with its billowing cumulus clouds, is given over to the upper half creating a dramatic elegance. He opens our eyes to the grandeur of nature, but (as here) it is in his massed cloud effects that he gives the most realistic picture of all, these forms contain life and appear to move as we look at them. The distant blue hills across the fields halt the eye's recession whilst in the right foreground a cluster of cottages, well anchored by turf stacks, give a sense of habitation. Front and centre is the milk cart of the title with a hunched figure clothed in earthy tones driving the donkey forward. Two large pails of milk sit in the back of the cart, gleaming in the sunshine, as they make their gradual passage along the rustic track.

The artist was known for creating variations on a theme and S.B. Kennedy comments on the present work "This composition is similar to a number of others by Henry executed during the 1920s and early 1930s of which In Connemara, 1925-30 (cat.637), Going to the Creamery in Co. Tipperary, 1927-8 (cat.664), and Connemara Cottages, 1928-29 (cat.682), are the most notable. But, unusual for Henry at this date, The Milk Cart and Going to the Creamery compositions both include figures and are particularly notable for this reason. Such thematic treatment of subject matter is common in Henry's oeuvre. Reviewing the artist's 1930 March exhibition at the Hackett Galleries, New York, the New York Post (22 March 1930) admired the 'simplicity and dignity', the 'impression of veracity' conveyed in the canvases, attributes that admirably describe this picture. The double signature suggests that that at the bottom left may have been added at some time after the picture was completed. (Paul Henry, with a Catalogue of the Paintings, Drawings, Illustrations, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2007, p.239).

Henry was the first artist to shed such a realistic light on what was then a wild and desolate part of Ireland, and with his signature big skies, striking palette and people of the land, the artist perfectly captured the atmosphere of the area. He succeeds in showing the west of Ireland truly as it was in his time and the hardship of life in the region was a recurring leitmotif within his oeuvre.