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Artist: Frank McKelvey Title: The Kinnegar, Holywood, Co. Down (1970) Signature: signed lower right and dated 1970 verso Medium: oil on canvas Size: 46 x 61cm (18.1 x 24in) Framed Size: 72 x 88cm (28.3 x 34.6in) Provenance: Collection of George and Maura McClelland; Whytes, Dublin, 28th November 2016 lot 10; Private Collection Exhibited: "The Hunter Gatherer - The Collection of George and Maura McClelland", The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, 2004 a#morebtn { color: #de1d01; } a#morebtn:hover { cursor: pointer;} Seated on a quay wall, a group of children are enjoying watching the annual regatta at Holywood in Co. Down, a coastal town not far from the port of Belfast. The event takes place on a typical Irish summer's day, a mixture of sun and rain. Over grey and blue waters, the sky is filled with sunlight, ... Read more Frank McKelvey Lot 38 - 'The Kinnegar, Holywood, Co. Down (1970)' Estimate: €15,000 - €20,000 Seated on a quay wall, a group of children are enjoying watching the annual regatta at Holywood in Co. Down, a coastal town not far from the port of Belfast. The event takes place on a typical Irish summer's day, a mixture of sun and rain. Over grey and blue waters, the sky is filled with sunlight, with perhaps a light shower on the way. The sailboats drawn up below the Kinnegar sea wall, and out on the water, provide dashes of colour, enlivening the scene. People also gather on the sea wall, and on the pier beside the yacht club, to enjoy the event. Having moved from Belfast to Holywood in the mid 1960's, McKelvey was drawn to this annual event run in June by the local yacht club, and painted several views of sailing boats darting about on the waters of Belfast Lough. Regatta Day is a late work, painted just a few years before McKelvey's death in 1974, yet is nonetheless one of his most delicate and evocative scenes of life and landscape in Ulster. Born in Belfast in 1895, McKelvey attended evening classes at the Belfast College of Art, while training as a poster designer for David Allen and Sons. In 1911 he became a full-time student at the College, winning many prizes, and seven years later won the Taylor art competition with his painting The Grandmother. Over the following years he painted views of farm workers in the vicinity of Bessborough, Co. Armagh, where his in-laws had a farm. While the Realism of his early work gradually gave way to a more Impressionist palette and approach, McKelvey never swayed from providing an authentic depiction of life of the Irish countryside. In addition to the area around Belfast Lough and the Lagan river, he depicted coastal scenery in counties Donegal and Mayo. A conservative and accomplished painter, his work contains evocations of cloud-filled skies, silver light reflected on water and people tending livestock. Together with James Humbert Craig Paul Henry and Charles Lamb, McKelvey is credited with creating a 'national' school of Irish landscape painting in the twentieth century. Peter Murray, September 2021