The Smurfit Art Collection spans three continents and contains some of the best 20th-century Irish art. Ciaran MacGonical reviews a new catalogue of the collection
In Jane Fenlon’s new catalogue of the Ormonde Picture Collection in Kilkenny Castle, she mentions that there were almost five hundred works in the collection of the Duke of Ormonde in the 17th century.¹ The Smurfit Collection worldwide is probably as numerous, although only one hundred and thirty works are included in this handsome new catalogue prepared by the Solomon Gallery.² While not a single picture in the old Ormonde Collection is known to have been done by an Irish artist (they were mostly Dutch and Italian), the vast majority of the works in the Smurfit Collection are by Irish artists. Thus one can trace the shift in patronage over the centuries: from the Church in medieval times to the landed gentry in the 16th and 17th centuries on to the great patrons of to-day which are, of course, the State and certain large corporations
The National Library of Ireland recently acquired an album of thirty-six watercolours and prints made by James Cavanah Murphy in Portugal between 1789 and 1790. Michael McCarthy recalls the career and travels of this unusual draughtsman
Writer, conservationist, collector and founder of Irish Arts Review, Brian de Breffny was a remarkable champion of Ireland’s cultural heritage. Ann Reihill remembers the man behind the journal and the extraordinary restoration of Castletown Cox