22 June – 22 September  

Gibson Galleries  

‘For close on three miles above Cork the river runs slow and smooth as if reluctant to meet the sea. Pleasant meadows border the stream, meadows in a wide valley, the gateway to the west.’  

_{– Robert Gibbings, Lovely is the Lee (1945)} 

This exhibition follows the course of the River Lee from its origins in the Shehy Mountains and Gougane Barra in the west to its meeting with the Celtic Sea at the mouth of Cork Harbour in the east.  

Spanning historic and contemporary works from the Collection, FROM SOURCE TO SEA celebrates the culture of the River Lee and its tributaries. Each painting, drawing, print, and sculpture offers a perspective on the river, the stories it has carried and collected, the places and people it has shaped, and the changes it has inevitably borne.

Much loved paintings, ranging from John Butts' View of Cork from Audley Place (c.1750) and Nathaniel Grogan's Whipping the Herring out of Town (c.1800) to George Mounsey Wheatley Atkinson’s Paddle Steamer Entering the Port of Cork (1842), are joined by the work of artists Sarah Grace Carr, Kate Dobbin, John Fitzgerald, Robert Gibbings, Patrick Hennessy, Seán Keating, Diarmuid Ó Ceallacháin, and George Petrie. Recent acquisitions by Ita Freeney, Bernadette Kiely, and Donald Teskey offer new contexts, while portraits by Nano Reid, Séamus Murphy, and Eileen Healy recall rich tales from the Lee Valley, including The Tailor and Ansty and the inimitable voice of Cónal Creedon.

Come on a journey along the River Lee and follow its course FROM SOURCE TO SEA.

_{Curated by Michael Waldron}