Dublin gallery day - part 1 of 3

During lockdown this year, I have been enjoying Graphic Studio Dublin's series of artist zoom presentations, Artists Beyond the Studio. A few weeks ago the final presentation was made by Cian McLoughlin, sixteenth in the series, in advance of lockdown being gradually eased and cultural venues reopening. Though he has done printmaking, McLoughlin is primarily a painter and his presentation and work shown was amazing; a recording of his presentation can be seen here, and many of the other artist talks are on GSD's youtube channel. In talking about his newest work McLoughlin made me aware of his upcoming exhibition at The Molesworth Gallery in Dublin, and this is where I started my "gallery day" in Dublin last week. 

The Molesworth Gallery is a private gallery in a refurbished Georgian building, not far from The National Gallery and the RHA Gallery, which were on my list for exhibition-viewing that day. Unlike the two larger galleries, The Molesworth did not require advance booking of free entry tickets (I enquired to be sure), so after parking the car a short walk took me to the gallery.

It was so lovely to actually be in a gallery after all this time of lockdown and it was wonderful to be able to see these paintings in person.

While these paintings may appear totally abstract, they are actually abstracted figures in crowds and this becomes apparent with longer looking.

I thought it was very interesting that McLoughlin had started this crowd-themed body of work before the very notion of crowds became an impossibility due to the pandemic. McLoughlin was especially interested in the positive herd euphoria of special events; during his GSD talk he spoke of feeling at one with a crowd during a music concert. His work begs to be looked at both up close (the details are marvellous) and from further away. In many ways it was no surprise to see that this was a sold out show. For me, the catalogue is a welcome addition to my bookshelf.

The National Gallery is about a five minute walk from The Molesworth, and that was my next stop. I had booked entry in advance through their website and the ticket was for the day. I arrived around noon specifically wanting to see the works on paper exhibition, which was touring from the British Museum. Living with Art: Picasso to Celmins is an exhibition of the bequest from journalist-collector Alexander Walker. He bought works that he enjoyed and, most interestingly, recognised instinctively when artists were on the cusp of a new direction in their work.

A

I was delighted to see many works, drawings and prints, by various masters of their art, It is always a delight to see something by David Hockney - the descriptions ("the hairy man he was staying with at the time"), title, and everything about the work showing off both his skill and sense of humour.

My timed ticket for the RHA only gave me an hour so I headed there - another short walk away - to see two big shows that I will talk about next week and the week after.

Bauhaus100 print portfolio exhibition at NGI

I was looking forward to seeing this exhibition at the National Gallery of Ireland, and was not disappointed. In celebration of the centenary of the founding of the Bauhaus school, the NGI borrowed four print portfolios from the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart. The portfolios were originally put together to raise funds for the Bauhaus art school (though because of German inflation at the time, this was impossible) and contained work by teachers at the Bauhaus and international artists who were petitioned to contribute. Wassily Kandinsky was one of the masters at the Bauhaus, and this colour lithograph, Composition, is from 1922.

This is a detail of Hoffmanesque Scene, 1921, also a colour lithograph, designed by Paul Klee, another master at Bauhaus. The Bauhaus students did the printing editions of the works for the portfolios in the school studio, giving them both printing experience and exposure to the work of international artists.

I particularly loved this linocut, Two Dancers, c1913, by Christian Rohlfs. It was exciting to see the works of so many artists who, for me, are like household names (Kandinsky, Schwitters, Kokoshka, Boccioni, Feininger, Albers, Goncharova, etc) but I was completely unfamiliar with Rohlfs. Now I am!

Lucian Freud and Jack B Yeats

At the end of June I was at the launch of Life Above Everything: Lucian Freud & Jack B Yeats at the Irish Museum of Modern Art Freud Centre. A large amound of Freud's works are collected together in the Garden Galleries (a separate buillding) as The Freud Centre, for a period of five years. Different curators deal with the collection in different ways and I have seen several iterations of vision for this work. I was immensely curious how the work of two painters, who I think of as polar opposites, was going to be brought together coherently. Below is Girl with Roses by Lucian Freud (left) and Portrait Figure of an Irish Gentleman by Jack B Yeats (right). It was interesting to learn that the catalyst for the exhibition was the fact that Freud had a Yeats drawing by his bedside for 20 years and had advised a friend-collector on Yeats works to buy! I enjoyed seeing many Yeats works that I had never seen before, and to see the Freud works in a different context. The highlight of the night, for me, however, was the poetry reading by Freud's daughter, Annie, whose poetic works showed facility and humour.

I was pleased several weeks later, when meeting friends at the National Gallery of Ireland, to view works of Freud and Yeats amongst other modernist works. While I had seen all the Yeats works on display at NGI on previous visits, I had a fresher point of view after having seen the exhibition at IMMA's Freud Centre.

I had never seen, or noticed, this early Freud painting at the NGI before and was quite intrigued by its mystery and expressive painting style, which is so different from his later works.

Irish Diaspora

While I was at the National Gallery just over a week ago, I also had a good look at the current exhibition The Pathos of Distance. The sculptural installation by Sarah Pierce was commissioned by the ESB Centre for the Study of Irish Art (NGI) and created as a response to international archive collections of images relating to the Irish Diaspora up to 1915. I wanted to see the exhibition myself as it is relevant to some of my own current research. 

The exhibition consisted of three rooms with central displays of configurations of furniture acting as platforms for the display of 1:1 reproductions of relevant images from the international researched archives. 

 The walls are lined with didactics, very readable in their note-like and/or quotation form.

All the images are pre-1915 and I was not totally sure of the significance of the post-1970 furniture, though I thought it may refer to the fact that the idea of Irish Diaspora is not static - emigration - "the brain drain" continues in waves, at the whim of the up and down economy of this island.

A reading-resource area was set up as a "lobby" outside the exhibition rooms.

The exhibition included a free brochure with an essay by Donal Magure, the exhibition curator, for further information on the Irish Diaspora and research project itself.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! And Happy Nollaig na mBan - it's "Women's Christmas" today in Ireland. This is a tradition mostly celebrated in the West and rural areas but as I lived in rural Kerry for 3 years, I always celebrate it as an anti-xmas -- we have a "Merry un-Christmas" today as the decorations will be taken down. Nollaig na mBan usually is celebrated with women having get-togethers to make up for spending so much time in the kitchen during the holiday season.

In the Dublin art world though, the new year means only one thing: Turner's watercolours are on display again, Hurray!

The Vaughan Bequest, 31 beautiful watercolours spanning JMW Turner's lengthy career, were given to the National Gallery of Ireland in 1900 with 2 stipulations: they would only be displayed in January in order to prevent light damage and that the public would never pay admission. The watercolours arrived in Dublin in a bespoke cabinet that the framed pictures slid in and out of like drawers. This picture shows what the framed pix look like on the walls.

I like didactics that give extra information. This didactic is for the two waterolours above.

The next three pictures are from the Vaughan Bequest and on display in the exhibition. They are most certainly better photos of the paintings than my in situ pictures!

Below Arvier, looking down at the Val D'Aosta towards Mont Emilius, 1836, JMW Turner (Photo NGI)

JMW Turner (Photo NGI) 

San Pietro di Castello at Sunrise, c.1840, JMW Turner (Photo NGI)

Dublin culture!

A few weeks ago I spent the day in Dublin catching up on exhibitions that I wanted to see. At the National Gallery of Ireland, there is a new way of displaying a most beloved and delicate painting of FW Burton's. "Hellelil & Hildebrand, The Meeting on the Turret Stairs" is on view at the ESB Centre for the Study of Irish Art on Monday & Wednesday morning only, through a free, but timed, ticket (available at the information desk). The last time I had planned to see this painting the viewing box was closed, so armed with my timed ticket I was delighted at the almost private view.

At the NGI I also saw the Sean Scully exhibition in honour of his 70th birthday. It was great to see the large canvases, especially the multiple canvas "window" works. A room full of Scully's b&w photographs was a very pleasant surprise, as I also share his obsession with stone walls in Ireland.

It is always nice to pop into the nearby National Museum of Ireland. There was an exhibition on Brian Boru and the battle for Dublin. You learn something new every day! Also in the vicinity is the National Library of Ireland. On the recommendation of a visitor I went to see the very meaty WB Yeats exhibition. This was my first time in the NLI and I was surprised at the size of the exhibition space. Since the collection and displays were manuscript based, the lights were very dim. However, I don't think conservation was really the top priority as a single spotlight focused in the centre of this painting by Edmund Dulac of WB's wife George! I don't think the spotlight was good for the painting but I was also disappointed that it was displayed on the top shelf of a display case so that it was out of my viewing reach.

In the afternoon I went over to the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) specifically to see the Etel Adnan exhibition. I had read about Adnan a few months ago -- she is a 90 year old painter and poet who is only finally getting some recognition lately!

While at IMMA I also took the opportunity to see the Stan Douglas exhibition "Mise en Scene".

Illustration and Books

While in Dublin last week, I couldn't resist this book of Fairy Tales illustrated beautifully by Harry Clarke. It was only when I moved to Ireland 20 years ago that I realised Clarke was an Irish artist, although I was familiar with his illustrations since childhood and had seen the gorgeous stained glass windows at the Hugh Lane Gallery on previous visits to Dublin. 

Reading the introduction to this book, I found out it was a re-print publication with all new photos of the illustrations as one of the original books was now in the possession of the National Gallery of Ireland. The original book can be viewed in the prints & drawings section of the gallery by appointment only, and I plan to do it!

Another colour plate from the book:

Illustration from its Golden Age (i.e., 19th & early 20th century) has been a life-long interest of mine (and I think most of my sisters too). My favourite illustrator is usually Edmund Dulac and The Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe illustrated by Dulac is still one of my prized possessions. Though the image below is not from that book, it gives a sense of Dulac's style. I used to have this picture hanging on my wall when I was growing up.

Speaking of sisters, my sister Yvonne Whelan, recently had an exhibition of her illustrations ("I Saw Wonderland") at Yumart in Toronto. The image  below is Sleeping Beauty.

Aubrey Beardsley was another favourite, though I bemoan the sale of several of his books when I left Canada, including a deluxe copy of Morte d'Arthur. Why oh why?

At least I kept my copy of the Romance of King Arthur illustrated by Arthur Rackham which I had bought on my second visit to New York in 1981. This Rackham illustration was another picture I had on my bedroom wall when I was younger.

Another book which I bemoan selling is The Rime of the Ancient Mariner illustrated by Gustave Doré. But I still remember the fabulous illustrations!

Dublin Visit

Yesterday I went to Dublin with my daughter, on both a cultural and fun visit! After a coffee shop stop once we got to the city, we started the day with a visit to the National Gallery. "Masterpieces of the Collection" was the main exhibition on and I wanted to revisit one of my favourite paintings in the collection - Frederick William Burton's "Hillela and Hildebrand - the Meeting on the Turret Stairs". Unfortunately, due to the sensitivity of the painting, it can only be viewed on certain days and Wednesday wasn't one of them! But here is an image anyway. 

My daughter is familiar with American art history and loves the likes of Jackson Pollock for his action style and painterliness. She had, however, never heard of Jack B Yeats, and I wanted to rectify this! There were  a number of Yeats paintings in the Masterpiece exhibition, and she did like them for the same reasons she likes Pollock. She also enjoyed some 18th century Constable-like landscapes in the collection.

We also popped over to the nearby National Museum of Ireland, which is almost like a home away from home to us. On this visit we focused on the compact but superb Egyptian room. After lunch we went for a glorious stroll (blue sky and heat!) around St. Stephen's Green, before joining the Viking Splash tour of Dublin. The tour takes place in a DUKW vehicle, created for WW2 and we were told that our particular vehicle had been on the beaches of Normandy. Part of the tour takes place in the water of the Grand Canal Basin which makes this a very unique tour of Dublin. The tour includes the wearing of faux Viking hats and shouting at pedestrian "Celts" so it was lots of fun! (The DUKW we were in was the Thor, but they all look the same -- like a boat in the water, and like a truck on land.)