National Gallery of Ireland is currently celebrating 170 years since the institution was first established with the signing of the National Gallery of Ireland Act in 1854, while this year also sees the 160th birthday of the building itself. To mark both these auspicious occasions we spoke to the Gallery’s Director Dr Caroline Campbell, and checked in with some contemporary artists and gallery curators about their favourite works of art housed here. We’ve also compiled a short, potted history of the gallery for your reading pleasure.
Reasons to be cheerful? This wondrous building is open 361 days a year, with free admission and is celebrating 160 years of gifting millions of people, from Dublin and beyond, access to a spectacular treasure trove of over 16,300 artworks.
Our National Gallery spans the history of western European art, from around 1300 to the present day, with a collection that includes well-known artists from Mantegna and Titian to Monet and Picasso. Paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings, photography, archival and bibliographical material all feature, in addition to objets d’art, silverware and furniture.
It is also a huge educational resource, the home of Source: The Irish Art Digital Archive & Library, a varied event and workshop space and just one of those magical places in our city to stroll around and decompress, surrounded by stunning artistry and beautiful objects.
To mark the occasion we spoke to some artists and gallery curators about their favourite works of art housed here, compiled a short, potted history of the gallery and spoke to Dr Caroline Campbell, Director of the National Gallery of Ireland.
Dr Caroline Campbell, Director, National Gallery of Ireland
Born and raised in Belfast, Dr Caroline Campbell has spent her career in three leading international art museums as a curator and senior leader. She has held positions at the Ashmolean Museum, the Courtauld Gallery and has worked as Director of Collections and Research at the National Gallery, London. Dr Campbell kicked off her tenure in November 2022, and is the first female Director in the National Gallery of Ireland’s history.
“A work of art is always contemporary as long as it’s being looked at. As long as it’s being thought about as long as it’s thought about in a way that’s of our time and of our moment.”
I am impressed by how open the gallery is to hosting contemporary artists, and of course, other mediums. Last year, Dublin jazz act Lavery performed in the space, and you housed an exhibition with Ishmael Claxton.
Well the gallery’s collections go up to the present day, across seven centuries, from the 13th to the 21st. It’s key that we are a place where anyone can find something to enjoy. Working with living artists, working with practitioners of other art forms, musicians and writers, is something that we love to do.
A work of art is always contemporary as long as it’s being looked at. As long as it’s being thought about as long as it’s thought about in a way that’s of our time and of our moment. We have responsibility for the National Portrait Collection, to be developing that involves working with living artists.
The sheer range and variety of what the Gallery exhibits is also a marvel. And is constantly growing. Are there any recent additions or exhibitions that you’ve enjoyed?
So far this year we’ve put on display two really important new commissions, one is a portrait of Marian Keyes by Margaret Corcoran, and the other, a portrait of Mike Ryan, who played such a huge role in the way the world dealt with COVID, by Aidan Crotty.
Last year we had an exhibition we did in collaboration with the Royal Hibernian Academy, which showed the work of all the women who have been members of the RHA, in the hundred years since women were allowed to be members in 1923.
The range and the fact that you can visit one place in here and cross time, and cross geographies because the collection here has always been a very international collection, and an internationally renowned collection.
A great collection of Spanish, French, Italian, Flemish, as well as Irish art and other art from these islands. You have a window into Ireland in this collection but you also have Ireland’s window out to the world.
And who manages the oversight of such a deep and varied collection?
We have a team of very specialist and expert curators, whose role it is to curate the displays in the gallery, but also the exhibition program that we have. We have a combination of exhibitions which are often organised in collaboration with institutions abroad. And for those exhibitions there would be an admission charge, but there are always times when you can visit those exhibitions for free as well.
What are some highlights we can look forward to over the coming year?
This year is our 170th anniversary, it’s also an important anniversary for impressionism. The Impressionist movement is 150 years old. We will have an exhibition opening in late June, which looks at the four women who were most closely associated with the impressionist painters in the late 19th century. Eva Gonzalès, Berthe Morisot, Marie Bracquemond and Mary Cassatt, who were the four most significant women who exhibited, or were friends with the Impressionist group.
We’re working on that project with a great partner institution in Denmark, Ordrupgaard, Denmark, as well as from public and private collections in Europe and the United States. It’s wonderful to be able to bring such important work to Ireland.
We always have projects about Irish art, and this Autumn we will have a show devoted to Mildred Anne Butler, who was one of the most successful Irish artists of the late 19th century. One of the first professional women artists in Ireland, born in the 1850’s and she died in 1941.
We will additionally be holding an exhibition curated by our Curator of Prints and Drawings, Anne Hodge, “In Real Life”, which looks at the fragility and beauty of nature through the perspective of our collection, and also four works on loan from four living Irish artists, Bridget Flannery, David Lunney, Fiona McDonald and Angie Shanahan.
If you think of the initials, IRL, it’s looking at nature through Ireland, and the beauty of the ordinary and how art can focus our attention on nature at risk.
Artist David McDermott: The Opening of the Sixth Seal by Francis Danby. Wexford. 1828
This work of art captures the cataclysmic finale when the Almighty renders judgement upon the world, obliterating all in His path. The remaining survivors, clinging desperately to their final refuge, are poignantly depicted. As an artist, I often ponder if I would replicate such a masterpiece.
I would cherish a copy of this painting in my home, a testament to its profound impact and my admiration for its creator and the Creator. This example of grand Romanticism illustrates a section from the Book of Revelations (6:12-17) in which, on the opening by God of the sixth seal on a scroll, the earth is torn apart and mankind descends into disarray.
Independent Art Curator Tony Strickland: Magnus Modus by Joseph Walsh. 2017
Amidst the classical treasures in The National Gallery, it is a modern piece that I keep returning to.
Set in the Atrium, Joseph Walsh’s large free-form sculpture Magnus Modus dominates the space with its clean curving lines.
A meditative piece, created with olive ash, the scale facilitates thoughtful engagement and an emotional connection.
Giovanni Guisto, Owner of GalleryX: Autoritratto alla Spinetta” (Self-Portrait at the Clavichord) by Italian renaissance painter Lavinia Fontana. 1577.
Lavinia Fontana was one of the first professional women painters in Western history.
This self-portrait was sent to her prospective husband as part of the marriage negotiations.
In it, Lavinia is showing off her skill as much as her looks.
It represents a woman taking agency and control over her own life.
Artist Dolorosa de la Cruz: The Temptation Of Saint Anthony by Domenicus van Wijnen. 1680’s.
The Temptation of St Anthony – a tale of the trials that the 4th century monk was said to have suffered during his pilgrimage in Egypt – has always been a fruitful subject in art from medieval to the modern era, representing the struggle between good & evil and lust & supernatural temptations.
The surrealists were my first introduction to the subject when I was a teenager, starting with Max Ernst and Odilon Redon, and later finding Dorothea Tanning and Leonora Carrington had all interpreted the subject differently, from monstrous, torturous hell, Apocalyptic fantastical heaven to quiet and serene universe.
The subject became an obsession for me too, often sharing on my art blog The Cabinet of the Solar Plexus, new finds of artists that have interpreted it. So it was a great delight to come upon this painting by Domenicus van Wijner, a Dutch artist from Amsterdam who also painted under the name Ascanius.
I’d like to think of this interpretation as Hallucinogenic Apocalyptic and a precursor to Victorian Faeries paintings and perhaps an influence on Fuseli and Blake.
Van Wijner painted this when he was active in Rome 1680-90. There he was a member of a mysterious art group that named themselves Bentvueghels (Birds of a feather), a brotherhood of northern painters whose initiations into membership were Bacchic affairs and rites in the mausoleum of Santa Costanza. While in Rome he also centred on the theme of witchcraft and Allegorical scenes.
170 Years of History
The history of the National Gallery begins in 1853, with an exhibition being held outside Leinster House. Not just any exhibition, but the biggest international event that Ireland had ever seen, the Great Industrial Exhibition, so significant that it was attended by Queen Victoria. A celebration of the industrial revolution arriving in Ireland, the exhibition was wholly funded by William Dargan, an entrepreneur and the father of Ireland’s railway network.
The enthusiasm of the visiting crowds revealed a strong public interest in art, leading to the decision to establish a permanent public art collection as a lasting tribute to Dargan’s contribution.
The Irish Committee was established to promote the creation of an Irish National Gallery. They decided that the gallery would be built beside Leinster House and its façade would be a replica of its neighbour, the National History Museum. Over the next decade, the committee campaigned for funding, which resulted in the construction and opening of the gallery in 1864, 160 years ago this year. Having not been founded on an existing collection, it left the gallery relatively vacant, with just 112 paintings on display.
In 1866, an annual acquisition fund was established for the National Gallery to grow its collection, and by 1891, the gallery was near capacity. In 1901, the Countess of Milltown gifted over 200 pictures to the Gallery from her house at Russborough, Co. Wicklow. This donation was so significant, it prompted the construction of a new wing to accommodate the collection. This would be only one of several bequests and gifts that the National Gallery of Ireland would receive, which shaped the collections as we know them today.
In 1900, the Gallery received 31 watercolours and drawings by the iconic English painter J.M.W. Turner from the English collector Henry Vaughan. Vaughan stated in his will that the watercolours must be exhibited every year during the month of January, to protect the paintings from sun damage. Since 1901, the Gallery has displayed the watercolours during the first month of each year.
Following his tragic death on board the Lusitania in 1915, Hugh Lane’s extensive collection was left to the gallery, including part of his estate. Beyond his involvement in the gallery, Hugh Lane had hoped to establish a gallery of modern art in Dublin, only realised after his death with the creation of the Hugh Lane Gallery, the first public gallery of modern art in the world.
The gallery was once again extended in 1962 with a wing designed by Frank DuBerry from the Office of Public Works (OPW), which was completed in 1968 and is now known as the Beit Wing. In 1978, the gallery received a collection of paintings from Chester Beatty, followed by the Sweeney bequest in 1987, which included notable works by Picasso and Jack Butler Yeats. That same year, Alfred Beit donated 17 masterpieces, again, from Russborough House, featuring works by Velázquez, Raeburn, Steen, Vermeer, and Murillo.
Six years later, the Gallery became the focus of international attention when Caravaggio’s The Taking of Christ, only known through replicas but long believed to be lost or destroyed, was discovered in a Jesuit house of studies on Leeson Street. The painting remains displayed in the gallery on indefinite loan from the Jesuit community.
In 2002, the Millennium Wing was built to expand exhibition space. Following that, in 2011 the OPW began a significant restoration and renovation project on the gallery. This project aimed to address urgent repair needs and update the Dargan and Milltown wings while providing additional much-needed space. The refurbishment of both wings was successfully completed in June 2017, ensuring the gallery’s readiness for the future.
Words: John Brereton, Ryan Kelly and Adhamh Ó Caoimh
Photos: Killian Broderick
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