Lot 35: Medora Heather Bent (1901-1992)

Medora Heather Bent (1901-1992) CAPE CORNWALL, APRIL 1941

ink and gouache on buff-coloured card

signed 'M. H. Bent' lower right; with inscription to previous owner exposed on reverse

28 by 37cm., 11 by 14.5in.

Inscribed, 'A present from Cape Cornwall, April 1941, from Alannah', on reverse. Medora Heather was born in Ireland and spent much of her childhood on the family estate at Errislannan, situated on a remote peninsula in Connemara. Her parents bred race horses and reputedly christened her Medora by randomly choosing a name out of a stud-book (it was either that or 'Cob-web'), but her aunts demanded an Irish name, thus, she was known always as Alannah. Alannah Heather's career as an artist led her to the Slade and London in the 1920s, to St. Ives on her marriage in the 1940s (the period to which this work dates) and Sark in the Channel Islands. During the 1930s she also ventured further a field on artistic excursions to Bruges and Budapest however; she was drawn time and time again back to Connemara, a location which provided her with fertile material for her canvases. (For further reading see, Errislannan: Scenes from a Painter's Life, Lilliput Press, Dublin, 1993)