NATIONAL GALLERY OF IRELAND
PRINT GALLERY 13 AUGUST - 7 DECEMBER 2016
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ECLECTIC IMAGES / RECENT ACQUISITIONS 2011–2016
NATIONAL GALLERY OF IRELAND
T
he large number of works gifted to the National Gallery of Ireland over the last five years underlines how the national collection benefits from the generosity of private donors. Many of these donations are works on paper. The gifting of
prints, drawings and watercolours is a tradition that began with the foundation of the Gallery. The very first works to be acquired were a group of 80 watercolours bequeathed by Captain George A. Taylor in 1854 before the Gallery building even existed. We are sincerely grateful to all of our donors past and present. This exhibition highlights a selection of the wide range of drawings, watercolours and prints acquired since 2011. Some works build on already strong sections of the collection. Alfred Fripp’s evocative watercolour of a deprived household in pre-Famine Galway (fig 1) connects with our collection of West of Ireland watercolours by William Evans of Eton acquired in 2008. A graphic image of 1950s emigration by Palm Skerrett illustrates a difficult time Irish history and reminds us of the ongoing migrant crisis. Drawings by Fernand Léger, Walter Osborne (fig 2), Sarah Purser, Basil Blackshaw and Kyffin Williams, and prints by Berthe Morisot, Frank Brangwyn and Micheal Farrell reflect our interest in collecting works by both Irish and international artists.
fig 1 Alfred Downing Fripp (1822-1895), Interior of a Fisherman’s House, Galway, 1845 Watercolour, NGI.2015.4
© National Gallery of Ireland, 2016 and the authors Published to accompany the Print Gallery exhibition 13 August – 7 December 2016 Curator:
Anne Hodge, Curator of Prints and Drawings
Texts:
Jillian Kruse, Anne Hodge, Niamh MacNally and Brian Lalor
Design:
Pure Designs Studio
Printing: Printrun Special thanks to Jillian Kruse for her invaluable research into the Brian Lalor Print Collection while working as NGI Prints and Drawings Intern in 2015.
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fig 2 Walter Osborne (1859-1903), In the Life Class, 1894 Graphite, NGI.2012.15
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ECLECTIC IMAGES / RECENT ACQUISITIONS 2011–2016
THE BRIAN LALOR COLLECTION The Brian Lalor Collection, a key recent acquisition, comprises over 160 single sheet prints and a number of portfolios and illustrated books. Conceived as a study collection, these printed images were gathered over a 40 year period, and generously gifted to the Gallery in 2014. As part of the study collection (which can be consulted in the Prints and Drawings Study Room by appointment), they are of
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Brian’s collection is eclectic and reflects his fascination in prints of all kinds, particularly black and white prints. An original print by Dame Laura Knight, a cartoon about x-rays pulled from a popular nineteenth century French journal (fig 3), a delicate seventeenth century etching
immense value to researchers.
by Claude Lorrain (fig 4), all sit
Brian Lalor is a Cork born writer, printmaker and collector. As a
Biblical Palestine relate to a period
side by side. The group of prints of
printmaker he works principally in etching, woodcut and mezzotint and his work has been widely exhibited. He was chairman of Graphic Studio Dublin (2005-2008) and his history of the Studio, Ink-Stained Hands, was published by The Lilliput Press in 2011. His publications cover a wide range of themes including art history, architecture, travel and autobiography.
in the 1970s when he worked in Jerusalem as an archaeologist (fig 5). Prints are the most democratic of media. Unlike paintings or sculpture, they are generally affordable. Versatile and adaptable, they have been used to explore all aspects of life – social, political, spiritual and aesthetic. Today the photomechanical print is the ‘print’ most familiar to us all, especially in the form of posters or framed reproductions. As a result, a print is often seen as an inferior object
Fig 3 (above right)
compared to a drawing or painting. However, in stark contrast to the
Lucien Métivet (1863-1930), Rayons X, 1897
photomechanical print, the creation of an original print requires great
Lithograph, NGI.2014.34
thought, skill and manual dexterity on the part of the printmaker
From the journal ‘Le Rive’
and the visual effects achieved, particular to the medium, have a fig 4 (below)
great beauty all of their own. The prints in the Lalor Collection fall
Claude Lorrain (1604-1682), Coastal Scene with Europa and the Bull, 1634
into a number of overlapping categories including: developments
Etching, NGI 2014.22
in printmaking techniques; the portrait in print; twentieth century
fig 5 (below right)
printmaking; and prints inspired by the American artist James Abbott
François Halma (1653-1722), De Bergh Thabor, 1717
McNeill Whistler (1834-1903).
Engraving, NGI 2014.103
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ECLECTIC IMAGES / RECENT ACQUISITIONS 2011–2016
PORTRAIT PRINTS
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ARTISTS’ PRINTS
Since the publication of Anthony van Dyck’s (1599-1641) influential
Although the vast majority of prints produced throughout history
‘Iconography’ portrait series in 1627, artists have captured the
were reproductive, there have always been creative artists who
likenesses of both well-known and anonymous figures in print. This
have used the effects peculiar to printmaking to create thoughtful,
collection’s mini gallery of portrait heads includes Wenceslaus Hollar’s
expressive works of art. The term ‘artist’s print’ is generally used to
(1607-1677) delicate etching after Van Dyck’s portrait of Mary Villiers,
describe those prints which are original graphic creations by an artist.
goddaughter of James I (fig 6), and Jonathan Richardson Senior’s
Printmaking encourages the artist to experiment since numerous
(1667-1745) honest self-portrait. Masterfully executed, these detailed
changes or variations are possible at every stage of the creative
portraits show the printmaker’s skill at capturing a likeness and
process. Renowned artists such as Rembrandt, Goya and Whistler
translating it into a two dimensional printed image.
were fascinated by the unique possibilities of expression inherent in printmaking and created influential prints as part of their output. By the late nineteenth century, when photography took over as the most common means of reproducing artworks, a new type of original printmaker or ‘painter-etcher’ emerged. Artists in Europe including Alphonse Legros (1837-1911), Mortimer Mempes (1860-1938) (fig 7) and Ian Strang (1886-1952) experimented with printmaking techniques to create new and original works of art. Novels and memoirs were enriched with delicate wood engravings and wordless graphic novels by artists like Frans Masereel (1889-1972) featured expressive printed imagery.
fig 7 Mortimer Menpes (1860-1938), Breton Peasant, c.1880 Etching, NGI 2014.74
BIBLICAL PALESTINE This unusual sub-group, mainly eighteenth and nineteenth century engravings, illustrate archaeologists’ and antiquarians’ explorations of the area. The maps, plans and illustrations show how scholars of the past tried to understand and make sense of the places and buildings important to Christians. Some of the prints were produced as souvenirs for pilgrims and tourists visiting Jerusalem and other holy sites.
fig 6 Engraved by Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677), After Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641) Portrait of Mary Villiers, Duchess of Richmond and Lennox, c.1646 Etching, NGI 2014.38
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THE GENESIS OF A PRINT COLLECTION BRIAN LALOR As a teenager I became interested in antiques, antiquities and in collecting:
Although I had already identified the Middle East as an area of interest,
coins, fossils, rocks and minerals, militaria, ethnography. Having read a
it was not until I became involved in the archaeology of the region that I
number of books on the topic of collecting, I learned about a nineteenth-
began to look seriously at the vast print coverage of Biblical sites. While
century innovation in printmaking, the Baxter Print. Shortly afterwards,
I was working in Jerusalem at its Temple Mount, this became another
I found one in a junk shop in Cork, purchased it, and my involvement
enthusiasm for me, on prints that required study and collecting, leading me
in collecting prints had begun. This particular Baxter print is included
to engage in an subject that encompassed religion, politics, architecture,
in the exhibition (FIG 8). My print collecting continued for the following
antiquity, folklore and fantasy — a gift to any print collector in the sheer
forty years, expanding to encompass specific areas of interest, but the
richness of its treatment by generations of print artists. In collecting, one
core involvement was in the idea of print itself as a visual language,
may (as most do) specialise or, more eccentrically, take an eclectic path. I
one of inexhaustible variety and complexity. My second purchase (for
chose the latter.
one shilling) was a bound volume of the complete Hogarth print series, rendered by some lesser nineteenth century engraver, but nonetheless an
The Brian Lalor Collection will be valuable in assisting student groups
introduction to one of the great individuals of the print world and to the
visiting the Prints and Drawings Study Room to understand this
concepts of narrative and social commentary in printmaking.
important aspect of the history of art. Material in the National Gallery of Ireland’s works on paper collection can be viewed by appointment
Moving on to study in London, my appetite for prints whetted by more
in the Prints and Drawings Study room.
reading and looking, the print rooms of The British Museum and The
Contact drawings@ngi.ie for information.
Victoria and Albert Museum provided in-depth education in prints, as did the stock of the London print dealers, forever available to browsers. Neither extreme rarity nor superlative condition preoccupied me so much as inherent interest. My motto became ‘look into, not at’. The reading of a print became an occupation in itself. When I had been collecting in earnest for some years, subject areas isolated themselves; the portrait,
fig 8
urban landscape, literature, followers of James Abbott McNeill Whistler,
George Baxter (1804-1867), Review of the British Fleet, Portsmouth, 1854
orientalism. In fact so complex is the topic of printmaking that one
Baxter print, NGI.2014.68
can find in any area of print, a lot more than is the principal subject of the image as suggested by its accompanying text. My interests shifted, expanded, focussed, then expanded again to encompass further topics and aspects, as I learned more. I was intrigued by the scope of the medium and esteemed as equally worthy of study and collecting, the master engravings of the sixteenth century or the popular lithographs found in the penny journals of the early nineteen-hundreds. I look into paintings to see what prints the subjects have on their walls, at Victorian political cartoons, again for the same purpose.
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ECLECTIC IMAGES / RECENT ACQUISITIONS 2011–2016
Image cover (detail): Wenceslaus Hollar, 1607-1677, After Hans Holbein the Younger, 1497/98-1543, Portrait of Unknown Man. Presented, Brian Lalor Print Collection, 2014 Image cover (detail): Thomas Bewick, 1753-1828, North Cape at Midnight. Presented, Brian Lalor Print Collection, 2014. Image above (detail): James Caldwall (1739-1819) After Henry Fuseli (17411825), Macbeth Act I, Scene III. Presented, Brian Lalor Collection, 2014. Image right (detail): Unknown Artist, Britain, 20th century, Powerstation on a River. Presented, Brian Lalor Print Collection, 2014.
National Gallery of Ireland Merrion Square West Dublin 2 Ireland Tel: 353-1-661 5133 Fax: 353-1-661 5372 www.nationalgallery.ie 12