When doing my quarterly art at auction preview for the Irish Arts Review, I wasn’t aware (because of deadlines) of Edward McGuire’s portrait of Michael Hartnett on offer at Adam’s June 1st auction. This is an outstanding work by an artist who has been described (by Brian Fallon) as Ireland’s finest portraitist since John Butler Yeats. We all know McGuire’s striking portrait of Seamus Heaney – housed in the Ulster Museum. The portraits have McGuire’s ubiquitous birds in common but they capture very different moods and personalities. We see the young, confident Heaney sitting four-square - eyeing us frank and free. A man going places. The Hartnett portrait captures a very different mood.. We see a diffidence here and the sadness and furtive melancholy of a man whose life was blighted in later years by marital discord and alcoholism. However, the sensitive, evocative and pointed poetry lives on. Such a fine poet. Such a fine painting.
