National Gallery of Ireland

After his visit to the successful Great Exhibition in London in 1851, William Dargan, the Father of Railways in Ireland, agreed to underwrite the costs of a similar event on Leinster Lawn in 1853. It was a huge success and the art pavilion particularly popular. This enthusiastic response was noted and a committee was formed to promote the creation of a national gallery. The land was purchased from the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) and the gallery as we know it today (on Merrion Square), was opened by the Earl of Carlisle on 30^th January 1864.

The National Gallery of Ireland

Back then the entire collection of paintings numbered around 120. However, due to the generosity of a few collectors, namely Henry Vaughan (31 watercolours by JMW Turner), the Countess of Milltown, and Sir Hugh Lane, the Director of the gallery who died when the Lusitania was sank in 1915. The Lane Fund continues to fund the purchase of paintings to this day. And George Bernard Shaw, the famous playwright, made a significant bequest where the gallery receives a third of royalties of his estate. As a young man he often visited the gallery, happy times that he never forgot.

The gallery made international news when it discovered Caravaggio’s The Taking of Christ that until then thought lost or destroyed. The painting was restored and is now one of the gallery’s real gems. And the recently acquired La Vie des Champs (Life in the Fields) by the French post-Impressionist Paul Cézanne will no doubt prove to be a popular addition.

So much to see….

The addition of the Millennium Wing in 2002 provided a much-needed second entrance (on Clare Street), and it is where you will find the Gallery Shop, restaurant and new exhibition space. The gallery has much to offer, and its ethos ‘to provide a place where the people could learn about art’ is alive and well and eagerly encouraged.

It’s a ‘must see!

Sir William Orpen – artist

Sir William Newenham Montague Orpen (1878–1931), painter, was born 27 November 1878 at Oriel, Grove Avenue, Blackrock, Co. Dublin. His paternal grandfather, Richard John Theodore Orpen (1788–1876) was president of the Incorporated Law Society and knighted for his services to the legal profession, also founded the successful practice which Orpen’s father, Arthur, later headed. William’s artistic talent was evident from early on, and it was encouraged by his mother against the wishes of his father, who wanted William to study law.

Sir William Orpen

He studied at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art (DMSA) where his precocious talent was recognised, and he won every major prize awarded by the school before winning the gold medal for life drawing in the British national competition (1897). Later, in London, he again flourished while studying in the renowned Slade School of Fine Art (1897–9) and won the summer competition for his ‘The play scene from Hamlet’.

He was small, only 5 ft 2 in in height, blue-eyed, with plenty of freckles and considered himself ugly, something that shaped his self-image. However, women found him attractive, and he married (8 August 1901) Grace Knewstub (d. 1948), daughter of a London art-gallery manager. They lived in Chelsea and had three daughters. He soon developed a successful practice producing portraits for clients throughout Britain.

He was friendly with Hugh Lane (from their time at the Slade) and he helped organise, and was represented in, Lane’s exhibition of Irish painting at the London Guildhall (1904).

During WWI, and as the most successful artist of his generation in Britain, he spent eleven months in France (April 1917–March 1918) producing paintings that showed the Somme battlefields in all their horror and the savagery of war. In June 1918 he was knighted for his wartime services.

Aftermath – A Memory of the Somme

He fell ill in May 1931, and died 29 September in South Kensington, London. He is buried in Putney Vale cemetery.

Lady Augusta Gregory

Isabella Augusta Persee was born on the night of the 14^th and 15^th of March 1852 in Roxborough House, Galway on an estate that measured 6,000 acres. Many years later she often questioned whether such timing – The Ides of March – was indeed favourable. She was the ninth of thirteen children, and closest to her four younger brothers, which commentators suggest developed her independent streak. She was educated at home and learned about local folklore from her nanny, Mary Sheridan, a native Irish speaker, and these tales left a strong impression on the young girl that she would develop later.

Lady Augusta Gregory

She was married to Sir William Gregory in 1880 and they lived at his estate at Coole, Co Galway. He was thirty-five years her senior, and they travelled in Europe and the Middle East, and had months-long breaks in London where she met such celebrities as Alfred Lord Tennyson and Henry James. When William died in March 1892 she returned to Coole and set about improving the financial position of the estate. After reading works by WB Yeats and Douglas Hyde she became interested in Irish legends and learned Irish to be better able to understand the stories that she collected.

By the mid-1890s she had become friends with Yeats who often stayed for months at a time in Coole, and the place became a hub for discussion on the budding Irish Revival. In 1897 a decision was taken to form an Irish Theatre, and the Abbey Theatre opened its doors on the 27^th December 1904 with two plays, Spreading the News by Lady Gregory and On Baile’s Strand by Yeats. Hugh Lane, her nephew, who she introduced to many Irish artists, later bequeathed most of his wonderful collection of paintings to the museum in Dublin that now bears his name.

Since those early days, The Abbey Theatre has become world famous, and Lady Gregory’s role as playwright and manager (until 1928) was remembered by dramatist Lennox Robinson ‘..without Lady Gregory’s doggedness and determination and belief in the Theatre, these people (Irish playwrights) might never have, artistically, existed’.

The Abbey Theatre

Sir Hugh Lane – The Gallery Guy

Art in the right place, is wonderful to see

And for Hugh Lane’s collection, it had to be

In Charlemont’s building

Shining with gilding

His Impressionist paintings so alive, such esprit

 

Charlemont House – The Hugh Lane Gallery

 

He had a vision for a gallery, in the centre of town

For exciting modern art, he strived to found

‘Twas the first of its kind

To entertain the mind

A beautiful hero, to his gift forever bound

 

An innocent victim, he died sadly at sea

The Lusitania sinking, could not foresee

His dream all to share

The gallery now there

Impressive and open, to light and beauty

 

Don Cameron 2020

Sir Hugh Lane

On the radio – 2

A few days ago I was delighted to be a guest on The History Show on Limerick City Community Radio, hosted by John O’Carroll. The two subjects who I talked about were:

• Sir Hugh Lane – art dealer, promoter, gallery director and patron of Irish Art ; and
• Jonathan Swift – scholar, writer, satirist, Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral and hospital patron.

Both of these men made immense and unique contributions to Ireland that we still enjoy and, no doubt, will the generations to follow.

 

 

Sir Hugh Lane

Dean Jonathan Swift

Sir Hugh Lane – Art Lover

Sir Hugh Lane

If ever one man made a difference, then the contribution of Sir Hugh Lane to the cause of promoting art in Ireland must be celebrated. His gesture in setting up the world’s first gallery for modern art in Dublin was far-sighted, and done with the love and understanding of an expert. The city and country are forever in his debt, and after more than a hundred years of business, the gallery is stronger and more exciting than ever.

Lane, who was born on the 9th November 1875 in County Cork, spent most of his early life in Cornwall, England. By the 1890s he was working in the London art market where he was known as a shrewd and knowledgeable investor, especially in the works of the Impressionists. Over time he bought a significant number of paintings and it is these that form the core of the permanent collection that now bears his name.

WB Yeats

In the early 1900s Lane often spent time with his aunt, Lady Augusta Gregory, at her home in Coole Park, County Galway where he met many of the leading figures in Irish art, including W.B. Yeats, Edward Martyn and AE Russell. In 1901 after he had attended an exhibition by Irish artists in Dublin, he was determined to open a gallery in the city for contemporary work from both Ireland and abroad. He persuaded some rich friends to help provide funds and the artists, Jack B Yeats and Roderic O’Connor, to donate paintings to the gallery that opened on 20^th January, 1908 on Harcourt Street. This was meant to have been a temporary venue, but after Dublin  Corporation’s rejection of his plans for a gallery (designed by Sir Edward Lutyens) on both sides of the Liffey, he offered his paintings to The National Gallery in London.

This action would have very serious consequences after Lane died on board the Lusitania when it was sunk on 7th May, 1915, about 11 miles from the Old Head of Kinsale, in his native county. (Of the 1,962 passengers and crew aboard 1,198 lost their lives.) Before boarding the ill-fated ship he had changed his mind, and will, about the disposition of the ‘39’ paintings (The Lane Bequest), but unfortunately the document, although signed by Lane, was not witnessed. This led to long and painful discussions with the National Gallery in London who had possession of the paintings, that were finally resolved in 1993. The Lane Bequest was split so that 31 of the paintings came to Dublin permanently while the remaining 8 paintings, although staying in London, were to be shown in Dublin every 6 years. All 39 paintings were reunited for the first time in Dublin in 2008.

Casino at Marino

So, after a difficult start, the gallery finally found a home in Charlemont House, Parnell Square, Dublin. This wonderful building was designed by renowned English architect Sir William Chambers in 1763 for James Caulfield, 1^st Earl of Charlemont. Caulfield had met Chambers in Italy while the younger man was on his Grand Tour, and asked Chambers to design a ‘town house’ for him. (Chambers also designed the Casino at Marino for Caulfield.) The building has changed little over the years and it is recognised as one of the finest examples of Georgian architecture in Dublin. Lane, sadly, never got to see the gallery, but I am sure he would agree that Caulfield’s magnificent house is a most suitable place for his collection to call home.

Charlemont House