My favourite painting by Eileen Black, Curator of Fine Art
A difficult decision - however, as I must choose, I shall go for Cherry Ripe, by Walter Osborne (1859-1903), purchased in 1951. Osborne, one of the most important Irish landscape, portrait and genre painters of the second half of the 19th century, studied in Belgium and France in his youth and spent his summers painting in the open air, as the French Impressionists did. To Osborne and his Irish and British contemporaries who had worked on the Continent - artists known today as the Irish and British Impressionists - an emphasis on light and fleeting impression was all-important. Such effects were best captured by painting out of doors. Cherry Ripe, executed in 1889, is imbued with this outdoor spontaneous feeling, in its sense of light and atmosphere, its loose brushwork and 'snapshot' composition. It is as if Osborne is standing on the street corner, capturing the moment on camera! Another aspect of the work personally pleasing is the era shown in the painting, that of the late Victorian age, which has always fascinated me. The picture seems to speak of summer days long ago and is hauntingly evocative in mood. For my part, my eye is forever drawn to the shiny cropped hair of the boy by the cherry seller's tray, the hair-cut so typical of boys of the time, a style seen so often in photographs of the day. That Osborne was able to depict this so plainly, whilst espousing loose brushwork and little detail - is sheer magic!
Image: Cherry Ripe, by Walter Osborne (1859-1903) (U116), purchased 1951