Is there a perceptible trait to Irish art? Frances Ruane wonders the questions as 70 artworks drawn from the AIB and Crawford collections go on view in London
The story of modern Irish art is one that’s not well known in the UK, which is why ‘Art of a Nation’, opening at the Mall Galleries, London is such a landmark. Although there were smaller selling exhibitions in the capital’s commercial galleries, like Barbara Stanley and Pyms Gallery, the latter leaving a legacy of well-researched catalogues and quality shows that did an enormous amount to establish Irish art in the UK marketplace, one has to dig deep to find anything in a public venue. In 1980 the Arts Councils in Ireland mounted three important exhibitions as part of ‘A Sense of Ireland, the London Festival of Irish Arts’. These three shows, ‘Without the Walls’, curated by Dorothy Walker, ‘The International Connection’, curated by Cyril Barrett, and ‘The Delighted Eye’, which I curated, gave three different perspectives on Irish art of the ‘seventies. A decade later, Strongholds ( L99″1) and Elective Affinities (1993), both at the Tate Gallery Liverpool, focused on new art from Ireland. Mall Galleries Director, Lewis McNaught, talks about the UK being ‘starved of great Irish art’, hence his enthusiasm for mounting an lrish show that covers a broader period of time than anything seen there before.
Susan Rogers visits woodturner Liam Flynn at his County Limerick studio
William Laffan previews the exhibition ‘Ireland: Crossroads of Art and Design 1690-1840′ which opens at the Art Institute of Chicago in March
In his design for the new Coast Guard Station in Doolin, County Clare, Dominic Stevens has discovered his architecture of the Burren; an architecture of abstract rocks, describing the material nature of place, writes Steve Larkin