Aer Lingus sells artwork

Jack B Yeats: Brother of poet William Butler Yeats

Beleaguered Irish airline Aer Lingus has sold off part of its art collection in a bid to boost funds.

Twenty works went under the hammer at a Dublin auction rooms and raised IR£450,000 for the embattled national carrier, said to be losing IR£2m a day recently.

Artists whose work appeared in the Aer Lingus auction included:

Norah McGuinness

Gerard Dillon

Brian Burke

Arthur Amstrong

Jack B Yeats

Arthur Armstrong

But the bulk art sale is unlikely to leave too many bare spaces on the walls of the Aer Lingus executives' offices at Dublin airport.

The paintings sold were only a part of the Aer Lingus collection and only two of those on offer had been on display in recent years - both in the company chairman's suite.

The others had all been in storage for some time.

But one of those going from the chairman's presence fetched the bulk of the total sum realised.

The oil, entitled By Merrion Strand, was painted by the celebrated Irish artist Jack B Yeats, brother of the poet and playwright W B Yeats.

It was bought for IR£290,000, a few minutes after bidding kicked off at IR£150,000.

Hone's The Rocks at Kilkee was also for sale

Dating back to 1929, it shows a woman standing beside a south Dublin coastline, and was bought by Aer Lingus in 1940, when paintings by Yeats were worth a fraction of their current value.

An employee of the airline had secured the purchase in London with a £5 deposit.

A spokesman for Aer Lingus, which is desperately trying to stay afloat in the face of crippling losses, said it was pleased with the outcome of the auction.

"The amounts raised were pretty much on target. It was all very positive," the spokesman said.

There were no plans for further auctions, he added.

Other artists whose works were in the Aer Lingus sale included Norah McGuinness, Gerard Dillon, Brian Burke and Arthur Armstrong.

Five other works in the collection, all acquired by the airline between the 1940s and the 1960s, were bought by the Irish state ahead of the auction.

'Financial crisis'

In other efforts aimed at correcting their financial crisis, Aer Lingus is set to shed about a third of its 6,300 workforce and cut services by 25%.

The company, already in difficulties earlier this year, was left in an even more parlous position by the effects of the 11 September terrorist attack on America.