George McClelland art collection goes under the hammer at Adam’s
Published December 6th, 2005
The collection of Belfast art dealer George McClelland is being auctioned off in Dublin on Wednesday.
Work by Northern Ireland artists such as William Conor, Daniel O’Neill, Colin Middleton and Gerard Dillon are for sale, but they probably won’t come cheap.
Adam’s Auction House estimates some of these works could fetch as much as £40,000.
The “lives and livelihoods” of these artists revolved around the patronage of McClelland and his wife Maura, according to auctioneer James O’Halloran.
He said the McClelland collection had “become essential to our understanding of NI art from 1960 onwards”.
The first half of the McClelland collection was auctioned in May.
Mr O’Halloran said that at the time of the first auction, the works now being sold were part of an Irish Museum of Modern Art touring exhibition, “so it’s fair to say they’re exceptional works of international quality”.
At the first auction, Daniel O’Neill’s Red Bow fetched a record price of 185,000 euros.
There are eight O’Neills being auctioned and Mr O’Halloran has high hopes for one of them, a study of a young lady from north Down which is believed to be his first portrait.
“Following the publicity surrounding the prices we achieved for O’Neills in the summer, an elderly lady contacted us with a very rare early work by the artist, who was her neighbour and friend in Conlig,” he said.
