GIBSON BEQUEST MEETING
JACK B. YEATS AND SEÁN KEATING
REVIEW FOR GIBSON BEQUEST PURCHASE
‘5. …Mr [Daniel] Corkery read a letter which he had received from Mr. [George] Atkinson, under date 28th Nov. stating that he had visited Jack Yeats’ studio and had noted two pictures of his, the purchase of which in glit [?] considered. The larger was entitled The Donegal Boat [known as Off the Donegal Coast (1922)] and is a characteristic piece of work, its catalogue price is £262:10:0. The other, a smaller canvas, entitled A Quayside Worker painted somewhere along the quays of Cork, is priced £105. The Committee have, therefore a selection of three Yeats’ productions, anyone of which would, in the writer’s opinion, be a credit to [the] Cork Gallery. That certain reasons, prevented him while in Cork of discussing Keating’s picture Men of the Southbut that his opinion of the work had not in any way altered since it was first exhibited in Dublin. He considered it good work; almost great work and far beyond one other work of the artist which is in the Harcourt Street Gallery [Men of the West (1915), Collection Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin] and quite equal to another purchased from Canada [On His Keeping].
7. It was ordered that Mr. Atkinson be asked to have another look at the two pictures of Yeats mentioned in his letter with the object of giving the Committee a fuller opinion of their respective merits and their value from the monetary standpoint and that, if possible, he should secure the assistance of Mr. Dermod O’Brien, to this end.
8. It was further ordered that the question of purchasing Keating’s ‘Men of the South’ and Yeats’ ‘The Donegal Boat’ be placed for consideration, on the agenda of the special meeting of the Committee summoned for Saturday 15th December.’
[Extract from Gibson Bequest Sub-Committee Meeting, 1 December 1923]
MINUTES OF MUNICIPAL TECHNICAL INSTRUCTION
School of Art Sub-Committee
(Daniel Corkery, Chair)
Woodcarving class; ‘requesting the substitution of electrical for gas lighting in the class room.’ Accident at school lift on 26/11 by Mary Scannell who mistook it for the Dressing Rooms.
GIBSON BEQUEST TO CORK
Poster advertising the Dáil Éireann loan
Image Dáil 100 Éireann (https://www.dail100.ie/en/long-reads/financing-the-first-dail/)
Action of the Trustees as Reported in Cork Examiner
‘About three years ago a Corkman who died in Spain – the late Mr. Gibson – showed his love for his native city, and incidentally set a worthy example to other wealthy Corkmen, by bequeathing the greater part of his property for the technical education of the youth of Cork.
The bequests included pictures, coins etc., and investments amounting to £14,794 15s 11d in Foreign Corporations, the interest on which amounts to over £600 a year. The Cork Borough Technical Instruction Committee appointed as Trustees of the bequest, the Chairman of the Committee: Mr. A. F. Sharman Crawford; Mr. T. Stack. T. C. and Mr. D. Horgan T.C. (Michael was does T.C. stand for – something to do with Member of City Council? I can’t find spelling in Irish). My best guess would be Teachta Corparáid (Deputy of the Corporation, i.e. Councillor) but I’m uncertain if that term was ever used
At a meeting of these Trustees yesterday it was proposed by Councillor Stack, seconded by Councillor Horgan, and agreed to unanimously to dispose of these foreign stocks and invest the proceeds, which will amount to about £13,200, in the National Loan*. The action of the Trustees is highly commendable and will be heartily approved by the citizens of Cork.’
[Extract: Cork Examiner, 4 December 1923, p5]
*As a fledgling government, the self-proclaimed Republic of Ireland from the very first Dáil in 1919 sought to publicly raise funds to support the new state apparatus. After the election of the fourth Dáil in 1923, a national loan of £10 million redeemable bonds at 5% interest was issued. The loan was floated in the Dublin Stock Exchange rather than London where it would have had to conform to the Colonial Loan Stock Art. The bonds were oversubscribed by £200,000 proving that the Irish public was confident in their new country. Two further national loans were raised for £7 million in 1928 and £6 million in 1931.
(source: Donal Corcoran, “Extreme Shortage of Money in the Irish Free State 1922-1932”, November 2014 www.ucc.ie/en/media/academic/government/otherdocs/No34byCorcoran.docx ) Resource: https://ifiarchiveplayer.ie/historical-material-republican-loans/
CORK LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY
“WHAT AN IRISH SCHOOL OF ART SHOULD BE”
CAG.0111 Harry Clarke, The Consecration of St. Mel, Bishop of Longford, by St. Patrick, 1910. Purchased (Gibson Bequest Fund)
Lecture by Mr. Daniel Corkery
‘In the Lecture Hall of the Cork School of Art, Mr. Daniel Corkery delivered a lecture on “What an Irish School of Art Should Be.”. Mr. B. M. Egan (T.C.), presided, and a large and appreciative audience was present.
The functions of the Cork School of Art at present may be classified:
The third is the legitimate function: the others are undertaken because there is no other institution to see to them. To teach the mechanic to aspire to a higher stage than mechanism is the aim of the School, man, as such, always reaching out to something that will move him more deeply than mere mechanism ever will no matter how efficiently the machine works.
But workmen will not labour towards these heights if there exists no market for their perfected skill. One sometimes thinks there is no market. Perhaps we seek it in the wrong place. Churches are always being built in the Catholic tradition – this is, as a work of art- will give a small army of fine craftsmen work for a long time. Even when not being built, churches are always being renewed in parts, and are constantly in need of decoration, of furniture – to use a comprehensive term.
When we think of the very numerous ways in which a large church seeks the labours of fine craftsmen, we understand this. Monuments in stone, wood, brass, iron, are always being made…Then there are the sets of stations, pictures of all sorts. …Lastly, there is the matter of stained glass. The church therefore provides a huge and ready market for all kinds of decorative art.
The extraordinary paradox strikes us: go into any Irish School of Art, and you see no object being made to meet the demand. You will scarcely ever see a trace of ecclesiastic art being either designed or wrought. Something therefore is wrong. The tradition is wrong on both sides.
This is the rough and ready view of the matter. In deeper sense, there is a demand. We find it evidenced if we open the first door of the first house in any city lane. There is a crowd of religious pictures emblems of all kinds, from floor to ceiling. All healthy and good – and only a fool will titter. Those poor people’s lives are enriched and deepened by these pictures.
I never saw any evidence that the lives of the dwellers on the respectable hills are deepened or enriched by the pictures they timidly venture on. As Ruskin was tired of pointing out, a religious people always make towards richness of colour; and those poor people in the lanes are the only guarantee we have that a native school of ecclesiastical art is possible. The demand therefore is deep almost as life.
There are but two traditions for us to follow in the matter of religious art – either the Mediaeval or the Renaissance. From the start, the Renaissance was a sham. It had no roots. It was transportation both in point of time, place and spirit. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately it was helped to produce works of great genius by a conflux of circumstances.
But even in its greatest work there is always something of a sham, of pretence, of vulgarity. In later times, when its great strength had been exhausted, it has produced little except vulgarity – in music, in painting, in architecture. Anyway, it is dead.
The French Revolution, and the subsequent strengthening of the sense of nationality in all countries has made the Renaissance spirit an impossibility. We must stand on our own two feet – be native or nothing. The Mediaeval was native; it was homely. It was intense – as Irish poetry is intense. We should seek models in the Mediaeval not for the purpose of imitating them, but to teach us how unsatisfying is Renaissance art.
The School would then confine its attention to Church art? No, but would begin with the actual demand, and supply that. Create a band of skilled craftmen – and who shall limit the promotings of a tradition so established? It will flow into all place, enriching and inspiring.
At the conclusion of the lecture, the chair proposed a hearty vote of thanks to Mr. Corkery, who suitably responded.’
[Source: Cork Examiner, 19 December 1923, p2]
CORK LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY*
CAG.0133 Patrick Hennessy, Cork’s Northside, undated. Purchased, Mrs J.J. Horgan from the Estate of J.J. Horgan, 1968 (Gibson Bequest Fund)
Lecture: Museums and their Uses
‘Mr J.J. Horgan presided at a meeting of the Society, when Professor Renouf** read a paper for discussion on “Museums and their uses.” In the course of his lecture Prof. Renouf said: ‘Before trying to explain what a modern museum is, or at least ought to be, it is as well to state quite definitely that it is neither of two or three things, that it is frequently assumed to be.
It is not, for instance, a building into which has been squashed somehow or other, a motley collection of weird and wonderful products of nature, and of human ingenuity, whose main, if not their sole, claim to notice is that they are weird and wonderful. Nor does it consist of a collection or collections of objects, made in the dark ages, or thereabout, and kept scrupulously or carelessly, as the case may be, in their original condition.
The ‘old curiosity shop’ idea is in fact completely foreign to the mind of the modern museum man, whose aim it is to make the institution in which he works, as alive, and up-to-date, as possible, that is to make it to the greatest possible interest and value to the district in which it is situated, or to those for whose benefit it is in existence. … [Renouf noted] Professor H. F. Osbourne, speaking of the work of the American Museum of Natural History says: ‘The museum succeeds if it teaches, and fails entirely if it simply mystifies.’
…A discussion followed the paper, in the course of which it was pointed out that the ideas of museum uses and arrangements, evolved, as the lecturer [Renouf] had explained, by experts all over the world in the past twenty-five years, had been anticipated and embodied by the Rev. Brother Burke in the school museum formed by him more than 30 years ago at the North Monastery Schools, Cork . At the conclusion of the proceedings, Mr. J.J. Horgan, the chairman conveyed the thanks of those present to Prof. Renouf for his interesting and stimulating address’.
[extract: Cork Examiner, 27 December 1923, p6]
**The Cork Literary and Scientific Society was founded in 1820 and set about arranging public lectures on a wide range of topics. In 1891, following proposals at a meeting of the society, a sister organisation was founded. The Cork Historical and Archaeological Society is still in existence and provides lectures and outings for members as well as publishing its invaluable Journal. The Cork Literary and Scientific Society is a voluntary organisation and still meet in the winter months providing fascinating lectures on many topics. Click here for further information.
**Louis Percy Watt Renouf (1887-1968) was appointed Professor of Zoology at University College, Cork in 1922. In 1923, after a visit to Lough Hyne, Co. Cork – where the only connection to the sea is a narrow tidal rapid, Renouf became entranced with its unique biota (the animals and plants of a particular area). Every summer his family moved from Cork to Lough Hyne to enable him to carry out his research. His equipment, though basic, enabled him to carry out hydrographic, zoological, and botanical research and he was particularly interested in the sponges.
Many eminent scientists were invited to work there, resulting – along with Renouf’s work – in an extensive body of scientific knowledge of Lough Hyne, built up over many years. In 1981, Lough Hyne was declared a nature reserve, the first fully statutory marine reserve in Europe.
(Ref: Dictionary of Irish Biography)
SASHA KROPOTKIN BY GERALD FESTUS KELLY PURCHASED
CAG.0004 Gerald Festus Kelly, Sasha Kropotkin, c.1912. Purchased, the Artist, 1924 (Gibson Bequest Fund)
GIBSON BEQUEST MINUTES OF MEETING
‘The Committee had under consideration the draft regulations prepared by the Chairman governing the procedure relative to the purchase of works of art and after some slight amendments they were adapted in the following form:
‘…In connection with an item on the agenda, to consider the desirability of purchasing the oil paintings (a) Off the Donegal Coast by Yeats, price £262.10.0 and (b) Men of the South by Keating, price £250, a letter was read from Mr Geo. Atkinson, dated 12th instant, in reply to the Committee request for a definite opinion …of the former picture, stating that he now makes a definite and strong recommendation to purchase this picture and that he is confirmed in his opinion by Mr. Dermod O’Brien, President RHA whose letter he encloses, and which was read to the meeting. That, as he had already mentioned to the Chairman, a painting of outstanding merit by Gerald Kelly, entitled Sasha Kropotkin was exhibited in Dublin in 1922 and that in his (writer’s) opinion, if the Committee made no other purchase during their term of office, they would justify themselves in the purchase of this picture alone. That he had put this proposal also to Dermod O’Brien and a reference contained in his letter aforementioned.’
‘…That with reference to the fine study of a head by Joseph Higgins to which he had referred personally to the member of the committee when in Cork, he was of opinion that as a general rule, it is not advisable to purchase plaster coasts unless with a view to casting in bronze and that if the Committee so desire, he would get a number of approximate estimates for the work.
It was agreed that ‘D. Corkery and J.J. O’Connor to go to Dublin meet with Atkinson and O’Brien to discuss prices asked for Keating and Yeats pictures.’
‘On the motion of the Chairman, seconded by Coun Egan, it was decided to purchase Kelly’s picture Sasha Kropotkin at the catalogue price of £250.
The Committee also considered, on reference from the General Committee, ‘that a sum of £100 be allocated out of the Gibson Bequest Fund for the purpose of purchasing picture of rising and local artists, now on view in the Cork Picture Gallery of the Munster Fine Arts Exhibition’.
[Source: Gibson Bequest Meeting Minutes, 15 December 1923]
FORMATION OF THE MUNSTER ARTS SOCIETY
![[Source Cork Examiner 12 December 1923, p4]](https://crawfordartgallery.ie/wp-content/uploads/19231220_Image.jpg)
[Source Cork Examiner 12 December 1923, p4]
‘Throughout Munster there are surely not a few interested in some one of the Arts, Literature, or Painting or Music etc. Some who practise one or another of these Arts, and the many other wise interested might, if given an opportunity, combine in a conscious effort to foster and promote Art in Munster.
Such an opportunity would arise, if those concerned were to meet in some central Town of the Province in order to discuss how best they could link up their several Arts Interests in One Association for the whole of Munster – a Society of Artists and Art Lovers exclusively devoted to CULTURAL INTERESTS.
The Art of every Nation is rooted in the Soil of its Provinces; there was, for example, the Umbrian School of Italian Painting – the Provençal School of French Poetry – the Gaelic Saga of Ulster and Connact [sic] – and there are the Ulster Players as well as the Dublin Abbey Theatre.
Before Art in Ireland can ever rise again to a life of its own, a consciousness for the Arts in general must be awakened in each of the Provinces. Would you not wish to awaken such a general feeling in your own Province by taking part in the proposed formation of a MUNSTER ARTS SOCIETY.
[Signed]
Professor P.J. Merriman, M.A. President U.C. Cork
Professor W.F.P. Stockley M.A. U.C. Cork
Professor Alfred O’Rahilly, M.A., T.D., U.C. Cork
Rev. P. Browne, D.Sc., Maynooth College
Lennox Robinson, Esq., Manager, Abbey Theatre, Dublin
Doctor Annie Patterson, Mus. D., Cork
Daniel Corkery, Esq.
Miss E. OE. Somerville
Daniel A. Veresmith, Esq.
Hon. Secretaries:
W.K. McDonnell, Castlelack, Bandon
T.J. O’Leary, School of Art, Cork
