13 May – 31 May 2015
The Art of a Nation is the first major exhibition in London for 30 years that celebrates the story of Irish art from 1900 to the present day.
Drawing on the incomparable, award-winning collection of paintings, photography, tapestry and sculptures from the Allied Irish Banks and Crawford Art Gallery in Cork, this exhibition will include over 70 works by many of Ireland’s greatest artists, including William Scott’s Blue Still Life with Knife, 1971.
Works by open air painters Aloysius O’Kelly, Sir John Lavery and Roderic O’Conor (whom Kenneth McConkey said “outstripped Monet in the pure intensity of his colour”) are represented, together with works by the ‘Dublin Painters’, Sean Keating, Jack B. Yeats, Paul and Grace Henry. Artists who celebrated the Irish way of life, like Harry Kernoff, as well as other experimenters who embraced new styles and themes, including Mary Swanzy, Mainie Jellett and Norah McGuinness, also feature in the exhibition.
The contemporary scene is represented with major works by Louis le Brocquy, Colin Middleton, twice Turner Prize nominee Sean Scully, one of the major painters currently working in the abstract idiom, photographer Willie Doherty and Royal Academician Hughie O’Donoghue.
Younger emerging artists such as Shane Blount and Caroline McCarthy demonstrate the strength and depth of Irish art today.
Presented with the collaboration of Ireland’s Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, as well as the Crawford Art Gallery, Cork, the exhibition promises to offer a striking and thought-provoking survey of the national essence of Irish art.
Opening Hours
Daily: 10.00am – 5.00pm during exhibitions (unless otherwise stated), including Bank Holidays.
Free admission
Mall Galleries
The Mall
London
SW1
Tel: +44 (0)20 7930 6844
E-mail: info@mallgalleries.com