WORK OF THE WEEK | 22 April 2024

CAG.3216 Nick Miller, Branching and Fragmenting: Tikkun Olam, 2019-20, oil on linen, 168 x 186 cm. Purchased, 2022. © the artist.

WORK OF THE WEEK!

Branching and Fragmenting: Tikkun Olam (2019-20) is a large oil painting by Nick Miller that holds rich temporal and existential references.

Drawing on a still-life tradition, the image features tree branches and flowers that form a dense, protective thicket, while a red step ladder, decorative vases, and other objects complete the composition.

Although the status of organic matter in still life (nature morte) often has connotations with mortality and the transitory nature of life, Miller’s painting also offers a hopeful outlook of renewal. ‘Tikkun Olam,’ as the artist notes, ‘is a Jewish origin story – sticking back shards of an exploded universe – piece by piece, with the intention to repair the world.’

The presence of a menorah (multibranched candelabra), broken and lying on its side, reinforces this theme, while a small Buddhist figurine placed alongside it is ‘more tied to a question of how individually we may seek stillness in the face of rapid change.’

This work, as Miller reflects, ‘was the first painting that I completed during the initial hard Covid lockdown.’ Hidden amongst the painted vegetation is ‘a beautiful purple and yellow’ image of the COVID-19 virus on a touchscreen tablet sitting ‘on the shards of a broken glass vase.’ The vase is itself a reference to the death of the artist’s mother in 2014.

‘From starting in 2019 and finishing in 2020, this work was important for me as a first in finding new ways for an ‘alla-prima-one-shot’ painter [applying wet paint on previous layers still-wet paint] to go back into older works introducing new elements over time.’

Nick Miller (b.1962) lives and works in Sligo. In 2001, he was elected to Aosdána and, in 2014, won the inaugural Hennessy Portrait Prize.

Branching and Fragmenting: Tikkun Olam (2019-20) is featured in A MATTER OF TIME.

WORK OF THE WEEK | 08 April 2024 

CAG.2863 Doug DuBois, Sweeny Jumps into Cork Harbour, 2012, photograph, 84 x 102 cm. Purchased, Sirius Arts Centre, 2013. © the artist.

Dive into this WORK OF THE WEEK!

Sweeny Jumps into Cork Harbour (2012) by Doug DuBois is a large photograph that depicts a rite of passage at Cobh’s Deepwater Quay.

The image features several teenagers gathered beneath a railway pedestrian bridge, as one of their number – Sweeny of the title – is captured, mid-leap, jumping into the deep waters of Cork Harbour. His movement is emphasised by being out of focus, while the rest of the scene is almost tense with stillness.

Encapsulating a sense of both bravado and vulnerability, the photograph comes from the series My Last Day at Seventeen. This outcome of DuBois’ residency at Sirius Arts Centre (2009-14) responded to the youths of Cobh, particularly the residents of Russell Heights.

As the artist stated at the time, ‘the place you grow up in is what forms you as an adult – coming of age is an experience that everyone goes through – it can happen at 17 or 12 or 45 but it’s that moment when you realise that your youth is behind you and no longer in front of you which can be a very difficult moment.’

The title of this work also recalls Buile Shuibhne, the Irish medieval tale Suibne mac Colmáin whose curse of wandering is characterised by flight. On one occasion, he even engages in a leaping context with Lonnog, the hag of the mill.

Doug DuBois (b.1960) is an artist-photographer and associate professor at Syracuse University. He has published two monographs with the Aperture Foundation and his work is in the collections of MoMA, SFMOMA, J. Paul Getty Museum, LACMA, Library of Congress, Victoria and Albert Museum, and Crawford Art Gallery.

Sweeny Jumps into Cork Harbour (2012) by Doug DuBois is featured in LIGHT AND SHADE until this Sunday 14 April.

WORK OF THE WEEK | 01 April 2024 

CAG.3239 Mary Swanzy, Flower Market, undated, oil on canvas, 45.7 x 35.7 cm. Purchased, 2023. © the artist’s estate.

WORK OF THE WEEK!

‘Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.’

We might consider Flower Market, an undated painting by Mary Swanzy, as an echo of the immortal opening line of Virginia Woolf’s modernist novel, Mrs. Dalloway (1925).

White blossoms at the centre of Swanzy’s composition act as a point of illumination which, in turn, reflects upon the faces of the three figures gathered round. One leans over the blooms to inhale their scent, while the others register states of intoxication or instruction, even caution.  

Previously exhibited in Irish Women Artists 1870-1970 in 2014, Flower Market joined the Collection last year and is exemplary of Swanzy’s deeply personal and complex subject matter that emerged from the 1930s onwards.

Mary Swanzy (1882-1978) is now acknowledged as a pioneer of Irish modern art. She charted her own course across a varied, ever-curious, and decades-long career that spanned a remarkable range of styles. Perhaps best known for her Samoan and Cubist paintings, she nonetheless resists categorisation. She was celebrated in the exhibition Mary Swanzy: Voyages (2018-19), a major reappraisal curated by Seán Kissane at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Crawford Art Gallery, and Limerick City Gallery of Art.

‘To be an artist,’ she once remarked, ‘you have to be very severe with your amount of energy… To have an overriding hobby, that’s the secret. Mine was an overriding hobby, I couldn’t get rid of it.’

Flower Market by Mary Swanzy is displayed on our main landing (Floor 1).

WORK OF THE WEEK | 25 March 2024

CAG.3228 Gary Coyle, Lost in a Ceo, 2022, video and vinyl wallpaper in collaboration with David Smith (Atelier Projects). Commissioned by Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI) and supported by An Chomhairle Ealaíon / Arts Council of Ireland. Purchased, 2023. © the artist.

WORK OF THE WEEK

Sometimes it’s good to be lost, and if you find yourself seated with Lost in a Ceo (2022) by Gary Coyle, then even better!

Combining drawing, photography, cultural iconography, and moving imagery, Coyle’s short film is a personal, and at times autobiographical, meditation on the idea of ‘The West’ and Irish identity.

With his astute observations and wry humour, the artist begins his ‘visual voyage’ on a ceo (mist or fog) bound Blasket Island and considers the legacy of seanchaí Máiréad ‘Peig’ Sayers (1873-1958), whose birthday will be marked later this week (29 March).

Of course, generations of people in Ireland – including the artist – have a school-based experience of Peig’s eponymous book, and through his film Coyle addresses these mixed feelings in an act of reclamation and admiration.

Commissioned by the Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI), the film installation itself is surrounded by a vinyl wallpaper print of the artist’s digital drawing depicting the rocks around the Blasket Islands, though filtered through the lens of eighteenth and nineteenth-century Western European visual representations of Orientalism. 

Coyle’s film conjures an array of images and musings, ending on shamrock painted streets in North American suburbia, in his attempt to grapple with – and tease out – the concept of ‘Irishness’. 

Gary Coyle (b.1965) embraces various media in his practice, including drawing, photography, and spoken word/performance. He has exhibited widely, both in Ireland and internationally, and is a member of both Aosdána and the Royal Hibernian Academy. 

Lost in a Ceo (2022) by Gary Coyle is featured in A MATTER OF TIME until 3 June.

WORK OF THE WEEK | 18 March 2024

CAG.3263 Elton Sibanda, Faded, 2022, screenprint, 46.5 x 33 cm. Purchased, 2023. © the artist.

WORK OF THE WEEK!

Faded (2022) by Elton Sibanda is a self-portrait in three layers.

Using a restricted palette of black, pink, and blue, the artist echoes his self-image in pixelated form. The resulting screenprint was inspired by a young African man who dresses in a particular way and echoes contemporary style in Zimbabwe, particularly during the annual Africa Day (25 May) celebrations. Sibanda emulates this style, with his dreadlocks down and dressed in a check jacket and chain.

As such, it is both a representation of his own culture and a response to feelings of isolation. ‘The sense of disconnection is because when I came here to Ireland I felt like I’m isolated,’ the artist reflects. ‘When I came here, the first thing there was Coronavirus. I didn’t know anyone.’ Then, starting college, he recalls that he ‘was there alone trying to make friends and it wasn’t working.’

By creating a self-portrait, therefore, and placing himself at the centre of the image, Sibanda reminds himself that ‘I’m there’. It is perhaps also an expression of dislocation, leaving parts of the self behind as one adapts to a new phase of life.

Elton Sibanda began printmaking as part of the Young Print Collective with the support of Cork Printmakers and Cork Migrant Centre. In late 2022, he exhibited his work alongside Amal Hope, Fionnuala O’Connell, Reem, Viktoria Kondratieva, and Yeaneah O’Connell at Nano Nagle Place and Faded was acquired for the National Collection in 2023. He is currently a student at MTU Crawford College of Art & Design.

Faded (2022) by Elton Sibanda is currently featured in ALL EYES ON US, which must close this Sunday 24 March.

WORK OF THE WEEK | 11 March 2024

CAG.3282 Niamh Swanton, I’ve Always Been Rather Shy, 2022, photograph, 56 x 84 cm. Purchased, 2023. © the artist.

WORK OF THE WEEK!

I’ve Always Been Rather Shy (2022) by Niamh Swanton presents a frontal perspective on a flowering fuchsia hedge. A figure in a hot pink formal pant suit stands with their head in the hedge, and their back to the viewer, in a diffident expression of the title.

The pose of the figure echoes and subverts the art historical Rückenfigur (back-figure) of nineteenth-century Romantic art in which a figure with their back to the viewer signifies subjective experience.

Often her own subject, Swanton deliberately obscures her face to allow her images to gain a sense of ambiguity. In this work, is she resisting our gaze with characteristic humour in order to project a sense of introversion too?

Niamh Swanton is a performative photographer based in Dunmore East, County Waterford. In her work, she ‘plays the roles of both character and director in images that depict the complexities of being.’

As she explains, her work ‘is influenced by the intricacies of psychology and dream symbolism, acting through performance and staged photography to build tangible forms of thoughts and emotions. By moving through such territories, [the artist] fabricates scenes which obscure the boundaries between imagination and memory. Although the narratives are fictitious, the images act as a catalyst for viewers to question the relationship that we have with ourselves on a very real and interpersonal level.’

Swanton is a graduate of MTU Crawford College of Art & Design and previously featured in our exhibition, SATURATION: the everyday transformed (2022). Seven of the artist’s works are in the Collection, including There Are No Perks to Being a Wallflower (2019) and Nothing Didn’t Get Worse (2023).

I’ve Always Been Rather Shy (2022) is featured in ALL EYES ON US until 24 March.

WORK OF THE WEEK | 04 March 2024

CAG.3244 Mollie Douthit, Voting Day, 2023, oil on canvas panel, 36 x 46 cm. Purchased, 2023. © the artist.

WORK OF THE WEEK!

As voting day (Friday 8 March) fast approaches, it’s good timing to focus on a small work by Mollie Douthit titled, you guessed it, Voting Day (2023)!

The painting records the appearance, from both aerial and frontal perspective, not of a polling station, but of a local doughnut shop. This is where the artist’s parents would bring their children – as enticement to get in the car on a freezing cold day – to carry out their democratic right. 

Douthit depicts a darkened snowy setting, as the headlights of a parked car illuminate the façade of the low, red-roofed building. An ‘open’ sign in its doorway and glimpses of furnishings and foodstuffs inside suggest an inviting warmth on a bleak wintry day.

The artist’s work explores ‘how biography and memories are shaped through experiences, stories and objects.’ Referring to the source of these memories as ‘the file cabinet of my mind,’ she creates evocative scenes that sometimes, uncannily so, become visual triggers that resonate with our own personal experiences of place and time. 

Originally from the United States, Mollie Douthit lives and works in West Cork. She holds degrees from the University of North Dakota (Grand Forks), School of the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), and Burren College of Art (Ballyvaughan). Winning the Hennessy Craig Award in 2013, she has also been shortlisted for the New Sensations Prize and the John Moores Painting Prize. She was awarded an Arts Council bursary in 2023.

Three of the artist’s works – Lisa and I (2021), Cereal Bowls (2021), and Voting Day (2023) – are featured in our exhibition A MATTER OF TIME until 3 June.

Mollie Douthit’s solo exhibition, WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE, runs at the Butler Gallery, Kilkenny until 24 March.

WORK OF THE WEEK | 26 February 2024

CAG.0300 Circle of Allan Ramsay, Portrait of Mrs Emmet, c.1765, oil on canvas, 75 x 62.4 cm. Bequeathed, H.L.R. Emmet, 1980.

CAG.0420 Circle of Allan Ramsay, Portrait of Dr Emmet, Father of Robert Emmet c.1765, oil on canvas, 76 x 64 cm. Bequeathed, H.L.R. Emmet, 1980.

We’re doubling up with these WORKS OF THE WEEK!

As they are pendant portraits, Portrait of Mrs Emmet and Portrait of Dr Emmet must be considered together as an expression of unity.

Attributed to the circle of Scottish portraitist Allan Ramsay (1713-1784), the exact date of their making is not recorded. But a clue in the portrait of Dr Emmet might help us make an educated guess.

Circle of Allan Ramsay, Portrait of Dr Emmet, Father of Robert Emmet c.1765, oil on canvas, 76 x 64 cm. Bequeathed, H.L.R. Emmet, 1980

Bearing the inscription ‘Robert Emmet M.D. of Cork’, it suggests that this was made at the time of his marriage to Elizabeth Mason, in Cork, on 15 November 1760. It is certainly likely that they were painted before the couple moved to Dublin, in 1770, when Emmet became State Physician of Ireland, an office he purchased from the widow of his predecessor.

The picture of elegance, Elizabeth Mason (1739-1803) was the daughter of Catherine Power and James Mason of Ballydowney, near Killarney, County Kerry. She would bear seventeen children but, sadly not unusual for the time, only four of whom reached adulthood:

barrister Christopher Temple Emmet (1761-1788)
lawyer Thomas Addis Emmet (1764-1827)
writer Mary Ann Holmes (1773-1805)
revolutionary Robert Emmet (1778-1803)

Robert Emmet (1729-1802), son of Rebecca Temple and Christopher Emett [sic] of County Tipperary, studied medicine at Montpelier University in France. Returning to Ireland, he practiced in Cork where he treated fever cases. It is he who changed the spelling of the family’s surname to Emmet.

Both portraits were bequeathed to Crawford Art Gallery in 1980 by the couple’s descendant, H.L.R. Emmet of Pennsylvania.

Both portraits are featured in ALL EYES ON US until 24 March.

The Arts House: Conor Tallon chats with curator Michael Waldron about a work from the Collection every Sunday morning on Cork’s 96FM and C103 Cork.

WORK OF THE WEEK | 19 February 2024

CAG.3064 Daphne Wright, Dead Christmas Tree, 2019, mixed media, 150 x 28 x 28 cm. Presented, Daphne Wright and Frith Street Gallery, London, 2021. © the artist. Photo: Jed Niezgoda.

WORK OF THE WEEK!

It may not quite be the season, but Dead Christmas Tree (2019) by Daphne Wright serves as a reminder of temporality and the markers in our daily lives.

From origin to completion, Dead Christmas Tree evolved over a four-year period. Wright, as she tells Ellen Mara de Wachter, would ‘drive around after Christmas and see the old trees in people’s recycling boxes. I would stop the car and pick them up, and then skin them back to the stalk.’

Wright’s denuded tree mourns the loss of its potential, and of a time when the tree was useful and a focus for – and of – conversation. As the artist has suggested. ‘it’s also about the combined mood of seasonal expectation and disappointment at the same time.’ 

Always concerned with how the overlooked minutiae in daily life informs our macro existence, Wright’s objects are often suggestive of a particular moment in a life. Dead Christmas Tree was previously shown in her solo exhibition, A quiet mutiny, at Crawford Art Gallery in 2019-2020.

Her art-making process and what gets subsequently exhibited is often based on which artworks she considers have ‘matured’. Many of her works ‘have roots way back, and then it is a process of development.’ At times – perhaps like some of our own personal relationships – she can ‘struggle with them for years.’ 

Dead Christmas Tree (2019) by Daphne Wright is featured in our new exhibition, A MATTER OF TIME, until 3 June.

Open daily | Free entry

The Arts House: Conor Tallon chats with curator Michael Waldron about a work from the Collection every Sunday morning on Cork’s 96FM and C103 Cork.

WORK OF THE WEEK | 12 February 2024

CAG.0920 Domenico Brucciani & Co. (after Alexander of Antioch), Bust of Venus de Milo, undated, plaster, 78 x 53 x 36 cm. Transferred, Royal Cork Institution, c.1849.

Love is in the air with this WORK OF THE WEEK!

Bust of Venus de Milo presents a likeness of one of the most famous figures in Western Art and yet you might not think it at first…

This bust is a partial cast of the original 2-metre-tall statue (c.150 BCE) known as Venus de Milo or Aphrodite of Melos, which was discovered on the Greek island of Melos (Milos or Μήλος) in 1820. Set upon a low plaster stand, it is comprised of head, shoulders, and chest but, even in this form, the famed sculpture’s truncated arms are apparent.

It is a representation of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, lust, passion, procreation, sexuality, and – through Venus, her Roman equivalent – of desire and sex. In ancient times, both goddesses inspired cults that worshipped and celebrated in their honour, particularly during the Aphrodisia and Veneralia festivals. In mythology, an intersex child was born to Aphrodite and Hermes, the messenger god, named Hermaphroditus.

This bust itself was made by Domenico Brucciani (1815-1880), the leading plaster cast maker (formatore) in London during the nineteenth century. In an age when photography was in its infancy and long before digital reproduction, he specialised in high-quality casts that were purchased by likes of The British Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A).

Displayed in our Sculpture Galleries, Bust of Venus de Milo is one of several casts in the Collection that were transferred from the Royal Cork Institution in c.1849.

Fun Fact: This and other Brucciani casts are identifiable by a maker’s mark which, in this case, can be found on the reverse of the bust’s stand!

Domenico Brucciani maker's ark. Photo: Abbey Ellis.

WORK OF THE WEEK | 5 February 2024

CAG.3250 Mags Geaney, Irresistible Force, 2019, acrylic on canvas, 40.5 x 30.5 cm. Purchased, 2023. © the artist.

WORK OF THE WEEK!

Irresistible Force (2019) by Mags Geaney possesses a magnetic quality as the subject regards the viewer with their almond-shaped brown eyes.

The gender of the figure is ambiguous and may be intentionally fluid, echoing the artist’s (at times) rapid brushstrokes. She captures and communicates a deep psychology, that we may guess at, with economy and painterly relish, while a surreal flourish also pervades the work. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it comes from a body of work that ‘explores the recognition of gesture and the art of “giving face”.’

Created for her solo show, Penumbra (2019), at Sternview Gallery, this painting was subsequently displayed at The Counting House (Beamish & Crawford) in Cork as part of STAMP Festival (19-21 May 2023).

Making the work following a personal loss, Geaney recalls: ‘With a mug of tea I stared at this piece, a portrait of a woman. Most people read it as a man. The undercurrent of androgyny revealing itself in this series. A new energy, in the midst of grief.’

Mags Geaney explores themes of grief, loss, identity, adoption, mortality, and health through figurative work, particularly portraiture. Her practice is primarily as a painter, but also encompasses drawing, performance, video, and installation. A graduate of both Limerick School of Art and Design and Crawford College of Art & Design, she is currently a member of Sample-Studios. Her work is represented in the collections of Bank of Ireland, Crawford Art Gallery, Lithuanian National Museum of Art, and private collections across Ireland and USA.

Irresistible Force (2019) by Mags Geaney is featured – along with the artist’s Minimal Chic (2019) – in ALL EYES ON US until 24 March.

WORK OF THE WEEK | 29 January 2024

CAG.3248 Seán Keating, The Window, 1924, oil on canvas, 141 x 122 cm. Purchased, 2023. © Estate of Seán Keating.

This WORK OF THE WEEK brings the outside in as we approach Imbolc and the coming of spring…

Now a century old, The Window (1924) is a tender, meditative painting by Seán Keating that still seems fresh and of the now.

Bathed in reflected light from the exterior world, it depicts a woman seated on a daybed under a large window. The figure appears to be quietly reading from a book, a gesture echoed in our screen-based behaviours of today. Writing of the artist’s model, his wife May, Éimear O’Connor notes that her gaze, though ‘never direct, is always suggestive of a lively intellect.’

Interestingly, the casement of the title is a type of three-part (tripartite) sash window, known as a Wyatt window. It is located on the bow-ended ground floor of Woodtown Manor in Rathfarnham, County Dublin, the eighteenth-century house in which the Keatings had rooms at the time.

An activist, socialist, and feminist, May Walsh (1895-1965) had, for health reasons, finished her education near Seville in Spain. Returning to Ireland in 1916, she soon became a member of Conradh na Gaeilge where she met Seán Keating (1889-1977), whom she would marry at the University Church, St Stephen’s Green in 1919. According to Turlough O’Riordan, May was by this time an agnostic, describing ‘herself as “independent” on the marriage certificate.’ Politically active, she mixed with Hannah Sheehy-Skeffington and Dorothy Macardle, and later co-founded leftist journal, The Plough.

Fun Fact: This painting was first exhibited at Aonach Tailteann a century ago, in 1924, and subsequently in Paris (1926) and New York (1929). Seemingly last appearing in public at the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1946, it remained in a private collection for nearly seventy years until it was acquired by Crawford Art Gallery in 2023.

The Window (1924) by Seán Keating currently hangs on our main staircase.

WORK OF THE WEEK | 22 January 2024

CAG.3152 Jennifer Trouton, Mater Natura: The Abortionist’s Garden [Embroidery], 2020-21, embroidery on linen, series of 6, various dimensions. Purchased, 2021. © the artist.

FOLLOWING THREADS is now in its final week!

So for this WORK OF THE WEEK, we’re focusing on six small but powerful embroideries by Jennifer Trouton that are featured in the exhibition.

As their title suggests, Mater Natura: The Abortionist’s Garden [Embroidery] relates to feminist questions of bodily autonomy and the State.

In making these works during Lockdown, Trouton found herself ‘in a very traditional way, sitting at night in my house, embroidering these plants, but the subversive nature of it is that these are not garden plants, these are not beautiful plants, this is not me celebrating the art of botanic. It was me embroidering these plants that women used in this battle for autonomy for their bodies.’

Varying in colour, size, and shape – circular and oval – these embroideries are a companion piece to a series of 32 watercolours of herbs and flowers, also in the Collection, that have traditionally been known to induce abortion during pregnancy. In Trouton’s embroideries and watercolours, these plants occur alongside the female pelvis and uterus, as well as maps of the island of Ireland.

Jennifer Trouton (b.1971) is based at QSS Studios in Belfast and, through her work, subtly weaves ideas of gender, class, and identity within Irish history. She has exhibited at Centre Culturel Irlandais (Paris), Butler Gallery (Kilkenny), Solstice Arts Centre (Navan), and Crawford Art Gallery.

Mater Natura: The Abortionist’s Garden [Embroidery] (2020-21) by Jennifer Trouton is featured in FOLLOWING THREADS until Sunday 28 January.

Open daily | Free entry

Work of the Week | 15 January 2024

CAG.0061 Margaret Clarke, Portrait of Lennox Robinson, 1926, oil on canvas, 61 x 55.6 cm. Purchased, Dawson Gallery, 1950 (Gibson Bequest Fund). © the artist’s estate.

WORK OF THE WEEK!

Holding our gaze through metal-framed spectacles, Portrait of Lennox Robinson (1926) by Margaret Clarke presents its subject as both still and restless.

Seated on a cane-backed chair against a grey-blue background, then 40-year-old playwright Lennox Robinson (1886-1958) is dressed in dark jacket, theatrical red shirt and dark bowtie.

It is one of three portraits of Robinson in the Collection – the others being by Seán O’Sullivan and William Rothenstein – and was painted in the same year as his play, The Big House, and the Abbey Theatre’s first run of Sean O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars. Considering the plays originating in other countries of the period, Robinson noted that ‘being brought into touch with other minds who have different values of life, suddenly we shall discover the rich material that lies to our hand in Ireland.’

Robinson was a great friend of the artist and her husband, Harry Clarke, whom he acknowledged in his autobiography, Curtain Up, as a ‘supreme artist.’ He was to accompany the ailing Harry to Davos, Switzerland in autumn 1930 and would sadly write his obituary just a few months later (The Irish Times, 7 January 1931).

Upon his own death in 1959, Robinson bequeathed thirteen artworks to the Collection, including those by George Atkinson, Margaret Clarke, David Hone, William John Leech, Norah McGuinness, and Jack B. Yeats.

Margaret Clarke (1884-1961) was born in Newry, County Down and studied at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art where she was considered to be among William Orpen’s best students. She won medals at the Aonach Tailteann (Tailteann Games) of 1924, 1928, and 1932, and was elected to the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1927.

Portrait of Lennox Robinson (1926) by Margaret Clarke is featured in ALL EYES ON US until 24 March.

Work of the Week | 8 January 2024

CAG.0292 James Brenan, Committee of Inspection (Weaving, Co. Cork), 1877, oil on canvas, 70 x 90 cm. Presented, Lord Powerscourt.

WORK OF THE WEEK!

Committee of Inspection (Weaving, Co. Cork) (1877) is a typical cottage interior by James Brenan who was known for approaching his subjects with a sympathetic eye.

A half-hidden man works at a loom. In the dim light his weaving is inspected for quality by a man in a top hat and a woman in a bonnet. The two women of the house, wrapped in shawls and with a guarded demeanour, observe the inspection.

James Brenan (1837-1907) was committed to improving the teaching of craft and design. Headmaster of the School of Art from 1860 until 1889, he understood that handmade lace needed to be superior in design and execution than mass produced machine-made lace. At the same time, the Arts and Crafts movement and the Irish Celtic Revival advocated for an emphasis on craftsmanship in reaction to factory-made designs and working conditions.

Lace-making students of Crawford Municipal School of Art, c.1890s

Brenan developed a visiting education scheme in partnership with local convents in Blackrock, Youghal, and Kenmare. Funded by the Department of Science and Art and the Committee of the Cork Exhibition, a collection of old lace was purchased for use in classes. Pieces of this collection were lent to the convents, and changed every month, and classes in drawing and design were established.

For many families experiencing real poverty, this type of work became an important source of income, freeing many women from total dependence on their husband's income, and producing pieces ranging from decorative designs for small handkerchiefs to sophisticated lace wedding dresses and veils for European royalty.

Committee of Inspection (Weaving, Co. Cork) by James Brenan is featured in FOLLOWING THREADS until 28 January.

The Arts House: Conor Tallon chats with curator Michael Waldron about a work from the Collection every Sunday morning on Cork’s 96FM and C103 Cork.

Crawford Art Gallery · WORK OF THE WEEK 122 JAMES BRENAN - COMMITTEE OF INSPECTION

Free entry | Open daily

Work of the Week | 1 January 2024

CAG.3300 Harry Clarke, The Colloquy of Monos and Una, 1923, pencil, ink, and watercolour on paper, 40 x 29.5 cm. Purchased, 2023.

WORK OF THE WEEK!

The Colloquy of Monos and Una (1923) is the first work by Harry Clarke to enter the Collection in almost a century.

This exquisite illustration for Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination shows Art Deco and Vienna Secessionist influences, while also referencing Gothic religious sculpture that Clarke likely encountered in Chartres, France. The artist’s diary from March 1914 attests to his reading of Poe’s stories and his interest in illustrating them.

The composition itself is conceived of as a colloquy – or dialogue – between lovers reunited after death as they hover above the Earth. Poignantly, when Poe was writing the story upon which this illustration is based, his wife Virginia Poe (1822-1847) contracted tuberculosis, the disease that would claim both her life and ultimately, on 6 January 1931, that of Clarke too.

‘This illustration,’ as David Caron has observed, ‘comes from the expanded edition’ of Tales of Mystery and Imagination (1923), that included ‘eight colour plates for which Clarke was paid £100 by Harrap.’

Three of these eight colour illustrations are now in the Collection of Crawford Art Gallery, with Marie Rogêt and The Fall of the House of Usher having been both purchased in 1924.

Fun Fact: The Colloquy of Monos and Una was previously owned by the barrister Albert Ernest Wood (1873-1941) and his descendants. Coincidentally, Wood was to introduce Clarke’s friend and fellow artist, Seán Keating, to Seán Moylan (1889-1957), which resulted in the creation of the iconic painting, Men of the South (1921-22), also acquired by Crawford Art Gallery in 1924.

The Colloquy of Monos and Una (1923) is featured in HARRY CLARKE: Bad Romance until 18 February.

Free entry | Open daily, except 1 January 2024

Work of the Week | 25 December 2023

CAG.3291 Isabel Nolan, The Light Poured Out of You, 2016, mild steel, paint, dye, fabric, dye 300 x 134 x 134 cm. Purchased, 2023.

WORK OF THE WEEK!

The Light Poured Out of You (2016) by Isabel Nolan is a chandelier-like sculpture which, instead of offering a source of illumination, is draped with lengths of hand-dyed cotton.

In resisting the customary grandeur and purpose of such forms, this artwork is deliberately provisional, dysfunctional, and unceremonious. ‘The frayed, lightweight fabric falls elegantly in straight and curved lines, absorbing and blocking light, but refuses resolutely to oﬀer any to the space’ in which it is suspended.

The fabric, suggestive of dust sheets, is by turns colourful and dark, perhaps evocative of stained glass within a spiritual interior. The force with which it drains and pours from the artwork’s steel structure conveys an emotional, even existential resonance – echoed in this work’s title – consistent with the artist’s interest in the ‘intimacy of materiality.’

The Light Poured Out of You was previously exhibited at EVA International (2018) and entered the National Collection at Crawford Art Gallery earlier this year.

Isabel Nolan (b.1974) has an expansive practice that incorporates sculpture, painting, textile, photography, writing, and works on paper. Her subject matter is similarly comprehensive, taking in cosmological phenomena, religious reliquaries, Greco-Roman sculptures, and literary/historical figures, examining the behaviour of humans and animals alike. These diverse artistic investigations are driven by intensive research, but the end result is always deeply personal and subjective.

The Light Poured Out of You (2016) by Isabel Nolan is featured in FOLLOWING THREADS until 28 January. Open daily, except 25-26 December and 1 January.

Work of the Week | 18 December 2023

CAG.0515 Jennie Ashton Hackett, Lilac and Laburnum – Portrait of Mabel Arnott, c.1898, oil on canvas, 112 x 85 cm. Presented, 1994.

WORK OF THE WEEK!

Lilac and Laburnum – Portrait of Mabel Arnott (c.1898) is a rare example of a painting by the Cork artist Jennie Ashton Hackett.

This late-Victorian portrait depicts the young Mabel Arnott, perhaps at her family home or the artist’s studio, seated on a leopard skin and holding the flowers of the title. The artist describes the textures of foliage, dress, and furnishings with relish.

Mary Louisa Mabel Arnott (1886-1982) was born at Woodlands, Montenotte. She was the daughter of Emily Jane Fitzgerald (1854-1938) and Sir John Arnott (1814-1898), founder of Arnott’s department store, one-time owner of The Irish Times, and Lord Mayor of Cork (1859-61). In 1915, Mabel married Captain Sir Francis Hugh Brooke, with whom she had two children.

Although her age in this portrait is uncertain, it was likely made around the time of her father’s death. The flowers of the title, and included in the painting, refer to loss – lilac being symbolic of mourning and remembrance, while laburnum flowers at the same time.

Jennie Ashton Hackett (fl.1864-1909) lived at 38 St Patrick’s Street where she also had her studio. Located next to Cork’s then popular Munster Arcade, it had previously functioned as the warehouse and shop of (her father?) William Ashton Hackett’s fishing tackle and sporting equipment firm. Although a painter of landscapes and portraits, it is not recorded if she attended the School of Art or studied under other artists. Her earliest known work, possibly made when still a teenager, is of a market day in Macroom and she also painted at least one view of Ballycotton. Little else is known about this artist.

Lilac and Laburnum – Portrait of Mabel Arnott (c.1898) by Jennie Ashton Hackett is featured in ALL EYES ON US until 24 March.

Work of the Week | 11 December 2023

CAG.3253 Kevin Mooney, Storyteller, 2016, oil on canvas, 80 x 60 cm. Purchased, the Artist and Hillsboro Fine Art, 2023. © the Artist.

WORK OF THE WEEK!

Storyteller (2016) by Kevin Mooney is one of 75 works from the Collection currently featured in ALL EYES ON US.

Newly acquired earlier this year, it is a portrait of sorts that both acknowledges an oral tradition and alludes to a seanchaí (storyteller) whose work shadowed many a secondary school experience.

Employing a palette of earth tones, Mooney describes a figure – with two long clay pipes, puffs of smoke, shawl, and hair parted at its centre – staring at the viewer through seemingly floating eyeballs. Could this be Peig Sayers (1873-1958)?

Picking through embellished accounts and unreliable speculations on pagan parties and tribal conflicts, on seers and magical shaman, Mooney imagines a ‘speculative art history’ through Storyteller.

The artist’s reading of mythology and history is layered, however, and he identifies how ‘the Irish’ are not a homogenous group, but comprise of different cultures and social strata that are carried throughout his current practice. In essence, Storyteller brings into being the ‘lost’ art of an Irish diaspora.

Kevin Mooney (b.1973) is a visual artist based in Cork and a member of Sample-Studios. His recent exhibitions include Pine’s Eye at the Talbot Rice Gallery (Edinburgh), 38^th EVA International (Limerick), Mutators at St Luke’s Crypt (Cork) and MART Gallery (Dublin), and Revenants at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA).

Storyteller (2016) by Kevin Mooney is featured in ALL EYES ON US until 24 March.

The Arts House: Conor Tallon chats with curator Michael Waldron about a work from the Collection every Sunday morning on Cork’s 96FM and C103 Cork.

Work of the Week | 4 December 2023

CAG.0695 Michael Thomas Murphy, Denny Lane, 1897, marble, 61 x 46 x 22 cm.

WORK OF THE WEEK!

Denny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes… Not quite The Beatles lyric we remember, but apt for this marble portrait of the Irish nationalist, writer, and businessman who was born in Cork on this day in 1818.

Denny Lane (1897) by Michael Thomas Murphy captures some of ‘the frank, hearty, honest air’ which, according to the writer Thomas Carlyle, characterised this posthumous portrait’s subject. The sculptor also describes Lane’s genial expression and rather fine ‘flapwings’ beard, complete with bare chin, which was highly fashionable amongst men of the period.

Denny Lane (1818-1895) is best known today as the writer of the song “Carrigdhoun (The Lament of the Irish Maiden)”. A Catholic, he graduated from Trinity College Dublin where he befriended Thomas Davis and Charles Gavan Duffy. His writings were published in The Nation and, following the Young Irelander Rebellion (1848), he was interned at Cork City Gaol. He was also an industrialist and involved in the railways of Cork, as well as the city’s various societies. He lived at 72 South Mall, where he died on 29 November 1895.

Born in Bantry, Michael Thomas Murphy (1857-1936) studied at Crawford Municipal School of Art when it operated at Emmet Place. In 1887, having received a grant of £50, he moved to London and subsequently exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts. Emigrating to Chicago in 1912, he was to exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago on five occasions. During his career, he made portraits of Queen Mary, Timothy Daniel Sullivan, and Archbishop George W. Mundelein.

For his 205th anniversary, come face to face with Denny Lane (1897) by Michael Thomas Murphy in our Sculpture Galleries.

The Arts House: Conor Tallon chats with curator Michael Waldron about a work from the Collection every Sunday morning on Cork’s 96FM and C103 Cork. You can listen back to this week’s chat here:

Crawford Art Gallery · WORK OF THE WEEK 121 MICHAEL THOMAS MURPHY - DENNY LANE

Work of the Week | 27 November 2023

CAG.1488 Mainie Jellett, Carpet Design, undated, watercolour on paper, 23 x 12 cm. Presented, 1993.

This carpet design is by one of the pioneers of modern art in Ireland, Mainie Jellett, and incorporates elements of Cubism and Art Deco, as well as the artist’s understanding of colour.

The design has a clear relationship with Jellett’s paintings in oils and gouache, and is deceptively simple in its arrangement of form and limited palette of blues, greens, and purples.

The artist had been encouraged towards design by fellow Irishwoman Eileen Gray (1878-1976), whom she met in Paris in 1922. Jellett herself was finely attuned towards the consistency of design and questioned, in an early 1930s broadcast, when the Irish government would appropriately ‘consider the artistic organisation and interior decoration of public buildings.’

This small watercolour has been in the Collection since 1993 and, for many years, we have wondered what it would be like to finally translate the design into reality. This led our curator, Anne Boddaert, to work directly with Ceadogán Rugs to realise Jellett’s vision for a new exhibition.

The finished carpet is now on display in FOLLOWING THREADS, which runs until 28 January, alongside a display of materials and a video explaining the making process.

Mainie Jellett (1897-1944) was educated in Dublin, London, and Paris. Together with Evie Hone (1894-1955), she was to set about transforming the modern art landscape in Ireland, introducing and teaching ideas of abstraction and encouraging avant-garde contemporary art. She was a key force in establishing the Irish Exhibition of Living Art (IELA) in 1943.

Crawford Art Gallery · WORK OF THE WEEK 120 MAINIE JELLETT - CARPET DESIGN LIVE VERSION

Work of the Week | 20 November 2023

CAG.2889 Julia Margaret Cameron, Beatrice (Study of Beatrice Cenci), 1866, albumen print, 35.3 x 28.1 cm.

WORK OF THE WEEK!

There’s more than meets the eye in Beatrice (Study of Beatrice Cenci) (1866) by Julia Margaret Cameron.

This photograph was created the year after Cameron had begun to use a larger format camera which held a 15 x 12 inch glass negative. Through her use of this, the artist sought to achieve a ‘more emotionally penetrating form of portraiture’ than was customary at the time.

The portrait itself, which is inspired by much-copied portrait (c.1600) by painter Guido Reni, is both remarkably candid and yet is a photographic conceit. It purports to be a study for a portrait of Beatrice Cenci (1577-1599), a Roman noblewoman who had murdered her abusive father and was herself executed over 250 years before Cameron staged this photograph.

The sitter is in fact Cameron’s frequent model, May Prinsep (1853-1931), who was born in Kolkata but grew up in Surrey and Kensington and had visited the artist on the Isle of Wight. She appears as Christabel, La Contadina, Sybil, Elaine, and Lynette, as well as herself, in Cameron’s photographs between 1866 and 1874.

Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879) began her career in photography at the age of 48, having received her first camera as a present from her daughter. Experimental and much ridiculed by her male peers, she produced some 900 photographs over a period of 12 years. Her niece, Julia Prinsep Stephen, wrote her biography, while her grandniece, Virginia Woolf, portrayed her in the play, Freshwater: A comedy (1935).

Beatrice (Study of Beatrice Cenci) (1866) by Julia Margaret Cameron is featured in our new exhibition, ALL EYES ON US, until 24 March.

The Arts House: Conor Tallon chats with curator Michael Waldron about a work from the Collection every Sunday morning on Cork’s 96FM and C103 Cork.

Crawford Art Gallery · WORK OF THE WEEK 119 JULIA MARGARET CAMERON - BEATRICE

Work of the Week | 13 November 2023

CAG.3233 Dorothy Cross, Daunt, 2021, Cotton, polyester, wool, cotton mercurisé and acrylic, 184 x 294 cm. Purchased, 2023. © the artist.

WORK OF THE WEEK!

One of the newest additions to the Collection, Dorothy Cross’ Daunt (2021) is a tapestry that replicates a photo taken by her father in the 1930s.

Opening a portal to our maritime past, the work depicts a lightship that once marked the position of Daunt Rock, a historic shipping hazard off the coast of County Cork near Rocky Bay. In 1936, the crew of this lightship were saved during a 49-hour rescue mounted by Ballycotton lifeboat volunteers. It was replaced by a buoy in 1974.

The tapestry is, therefore, concerned with the perils of the sea and sea crossings. Although the name Daunt refers to a land-owning family from nearby Tracton Abbey, the word daunt itself means ‘to overcome with fear; intimidate, to lessen the courage of; dishearten.’

Daunt links to a transient focus in Cross’ work and also hints towards projects such as Ghost Ship (1999), Heartship (2019), and Kinship (2022). Tapestry is an unusual medium for the artist and brings to the fore both familial and geographic traces.

Dorothy Cross (b.1956) works across sculpture, film, and photography in an international practice that looks at relationships between body and time, the human and the natural world, and celebrates wonder and beauty despite the brevity of human existence. Originally from Cork, she lives and works in Connemara.

Daunt (2021) by Dorothy Cross is featured in FOLLOWING THREADS until 28 January.

The Arts House: Conor Tallon chats with curator Michael Waldron about a work from the Collection every Sunday morning on Cork’s 96FM and C103 Cork.

Work of the Week | 6 November 2023

CAG.2808 Danny McCarthy, A Keeper of the Dust (for Joseph Beuys), 2011, Lambda print (series of 5), 50 x 60 cm each. Purchased, the Artist, 2011. © the artist.

WORK OF THE WEEK!

A Keeper of the Dust (for Joseph Beuys) is a work created as a result of a performance by Danny McCarthy.

As its title indicates, this is a direct response to the German performance artist Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) who had given one of his blackboard performances, “The Secret Block for a Secret Person in Ireland”, in the Gallery’s lecture theatre on 26 September 1974. McCarthy, then in his twenties, was present.

‘In a world increasingly manipulated by publicity, political propaganda, the culture business and the Press,’ Beuys reportedly stated at this Arts Council of Ireland sponsored lecture, ‘it is not to the named- but to the nameless – that [art schools] offer a forum.’

Unlike in other venues where they were preserved, following his Cork lecture Beuys’ blackboard was inadvertently wiped clean, and the index of his performance was lost.

Aware of what had happened, McCarthy collected the chalk dust from the base of the blackboard and stored it until, in 2011, Seán Lynch invited him as ‘keeper of the dust’ to create a performance of his own for the exhibition, A Rocky Road. Taking place at Crawford Art Gallery, this saw the artist deposit chalk dust into various points throughout the building.

That performance, and Beuys’ original one in 1974, are both embodied and remembered in this artwork and, indeed, in the cracks and corners of the Gallery’s building.

Danny McCarthy (b.1950) is one of the pioneers of performance art and sound art in Ireland. His new sound installation, Gort An Eist (Whispering The Names Of Places Long Forgotten), is currently at the Old Market House Arts Centre, Dungarvan.

A Keeper of the Dust (for Joseph Beuys) by Danny McCarthy is featured in SITE OF CHANGE: Evolution of a Building which must close this Sunday 12 November.