In celebration of its 150th anniversary, Patrick J Murphy surveys the wealth of talented art students who have won the RDS Taylor Art Award.
It may not be widely known that the Royal Dublin Society has been seminally influential in the development of the fine arts and crafts in Ireland since its establishment as the Dublin Society in 1731, almost three centuries ago. Its first art award of £25 was made as early as 1741 to a Miss Susanna Drury for her four watercolour paintings of the Giants Causeway in Co Antrim. Soon after that date, the RDS took over the running of a private drawing school already established by Robert West and annual attendance averaged no less than 200 pupils for the next century. In 1841, the RDS organised its first exhibition of student art and this may have been one of the first initiatives of its kind in the world. A year later, it adopted its visionary policy of holding an annual art exhibition and prize-giving ceremony for art students under the age of twenty-five years who were graduating from its school after three years of study.
David Davidson pays tribute to Bill Doyle, Dublin-born master photographer, who in these fond studies has left an indelible record of his country