Wheels within wheels

It’s always a triumph when a lost Una Watters comes to light. It’s a red-letter occasion when two are unearthed in the same week. As an indirect result of my recent talk in Ballinasloe about Una’s Galway-inspired work, an owner of one of her untraced oils from the 1966 posthumous exhibition has come forward.

With the help of Eugene Watters’ niece, Georgina O’Donovan, we’ve identified the new find as To the Sea (oil on canvas, 43.1 x 54.6 cms) dated to 1962. It depicts a couple on bicycles, viewed from the back, as they cycle towards the sea, their swimming gear rolled up in towels on the back carriers.

I presumed, at first, this was a Galway scene, but on further investigation, it seems this is an east coast painting, more specifically, we think, Laytown, Co Meath. Una’s naming of paintings is always a help in this regard, being plain and informative. To the Sea suggests proximity; cycling to the sea from Ballinasloe would have been quite a trip.

The bridges in the background also led me to believe it might have been Ballinasloe and its environs. (Una had a weakness for bridges) There seems to be several bridges in evidence here – a railway bridge, an iron footbridge, and on the left a stone arch. The railway bridge could be the Laytown Viaduct and the stone arch could belong to the Boyne Valley Viaduct. Geographically, these might not be visible in the same frame but Una often used this composite approach to her cityscapes – see my earlier blog on City Bridge – https://unawattersartist.com/2020/06/09/the-bridge-of-time/ – where several stone landmarks of Dublin are impressionistically viewed together, jigsaw-like, on the same plane.

The horizon of the painting is quite high – note the perspective of the road winding away behind the bridge, and the sea – typical of an uncertain Irish summer – is the opaque grey expanse at eye-level for the figures. A steamer puffing smoke ploughs away on the high horizon mark above the male cyclist’s head.

Una would have known this area very well from holidays there as a child and Georgina O’Donovan remembers her parents and Eugene and Una taking several cycling holidays together. “There is an innocence about it all,” she says about this painting. “The couple holding hands, the swimming gear on the carriers and the possibility of catching that boat to new lands and adventures.”  

Georgina has identified her father, Tom Watters, (Eugene’s brother) as the model for the man in the painting – see Tom Watters also in Wild Apples – see https://unawattersartist.com/2020/06/24/wild-apples/ and The Game of Chess. https://unawattersartist.com/2021/04/10/a-game-of-chess/

Una often depicted herself in her work as a dark woman in red, so this blonde woman in her sunny yellow dress is definitely not her. However, Georgina believes she bears a passing likeness to the mother of the painting’s present owner, who was gifted To the Sea after Una’s death.

In this work Una’s interest is also in the dynamic movement of the bicycles. The whir of the wheels, the tensing of the woman’s calves, the folds of her dress are depicted in strong physical strokes so speed and movement are made manifest on the canvas. This dynamism is mirrored in the foreground of the painting. The vegetation looks turbulent, tossed-looking, and the very ground underfoot unstable.

Una’s rendering of physical gestures often hints at emotional drama. The woman’s back is to us so she remains mysterious, but we see the man sketchily in profile as he holds her hand and turns to her. A beam of weak misted light from an unseen source grazes her shoulder, but it mirrors the slant of his gaze. She’s cycling in a straight line, but the front wheel of his bike is not evident, merely suggested by a series of veering circles. The implication is he’s having a slight wobble. Is he about to fall in more ways than one?

The second find is a watercolour, untitled, showing Ballyforan Bridge near Ballinasloe, which was completed in 1953. This was a favoured picnic site for the Watters family and a meeting point for fishing expeditions in the summer consisting of Eugene, Una, his brother Tom and wife Bridie, and their children. The watercolour is delicate in its rendering, serene in its mood showing the glassy River Suck on a still, mauve summer’s evening, while a man driving a hay cart is seen crossing the bridge. The arches of the bridge (bridges, again!) and the spindly trees either side are echoed in the water giving a shimmering, ethereal feel the work.