CAG.0367 Richard Benjamin Wood, Drawing No.2 of Cork School of Art, 1894, pencil and watercolour on paper, 52 x 71 cm. Presented, 1989.

WORK OF THE WEEK!

Drawing No.2 of Cork School of Art (1894) is one of two works by Richard Benjamin Wood that take us back to when part of our building was still very new.

Measured and drawn by Wood, the focus of these drawings is Arthur Hill’s major extension to the building in 1884, detailed on the opposite wall and elsewhere in this exhibition.

In this drawing, we are presented with a cross-section of our Sculpture Galleries and the wood-paneled top floor classrooms at a scale of 4 feet to the inch. Wood carefully details the cornicing, skirting, windowsills, piers, and chimneys.

By contrast, Drawing No.1 (which is also in the Collection) in this series offers a valuable record of the uses of the various rooms of our building ten years after they had been constructed, including the Antique Room and caretaker’s parlour and bedroom.

Richard Benjamin Wood, Drawing No.1 of Cork School of Art, 1894, pencil and watercolour on paper, 52 x 71 cm. Presented, 1989.

This pair of architectural drawings was submitted to the Lord Mayor’s Prize in December 1894. They were examined, according to the small frank, in 1895. It is likely, therefore, that Wood was a student at the Crawford Municipal School of Art, which would explain the choice of subject.

Not much is known about Richard Benjamin Wood (1877-1977) beyond these drawings. We do know, however, that he was the son of Richard Ponsonby Wood, a hatter who lived at 2 Newenham Terrace, Infirmary Road in Cork’s South Parish.

Drawing No.2 of Cork School of Art (1894) by Richard Benjamin Wood is featured in SITE OF CHANGE: Evolution of a Building until 12 November.

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. 

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