Irish Artists in Honor of St. Patrick's Day

It's been nearly four years since we visited Dublin, Ireland on our trip to the UK in June of 2017.  While we did visit the Irish National Gallery, many of the floors were closed off to the public, possibly for renovation. However, we did get to see works by Picasso, Signac, Monet, Sisley, and John Singer Sargent. See my June 2019 post entitled, UK Art and Museums.

Molly Malone (installed in 1988)

Apparently, there are lots of statues of Dublin's famous characters although the only one I remember seeing was of Molly Malone, the heroine immortalized in Dublin's unofficial anthem. Visitors seem to be enamored with her breasts as is evidenced by the shiniest area of the bronze sculpture.

Guinness Turtle
by John Gilroy

Our favorite attractions were the Guinness Brewery and the Jameson Distillery. Surprisingly, both showcased artwork used in advertising along with other historical artifacts. My daughter and I also found a picture of David Bowie (who died in January 2016) displayed in a shop window. In January 2021, I included him in my post about Famous Capricorns Throughout History.

In my March 2020 post, Shamrocks, Bowler Hats, and Irish Artists I highlighted Irish artists -- Francis Bacon, Dorothy Cross, Conor Harrington, and Sean Scully -- and now I realize that I missed six more famous artists from the Emerald Isle. See The Best and Most Famous Irish Artists.

Let's go in chronological order:

1. Charles Jervas (1675-1739) was famous for his portraiture.

Deer, Dog, and Cat (the 1730s),
Charles Jervas

His figures of royalty are stylized with elongated bodies and often disproportionately small heads. His paintings that include children show much smaller almost dwarfed figures clad just as opulently as the adults. I found this rather gruesome portrait of a dog and cat with the spoils of a hunt, including a deer and a bird (excluded from the title).

2. Sir John Lavery (1856-1941) also painted portraits and is particularly known for depicting wartime (WWI) scenes.

The Chess Players (1929), Sir John Lavery

This painting is a portrait of two redheaded girls playing chess. It reminds me of the Netflix miniseries, which we watched while visiting Palm Springs, CA -- The Queen's Gambit -- about a young female orphan who with the help of a janitor and her adoptive mother becomes a famous chess player.

3. Jack Butler Yeats (1871-1957) was an Irish Expressionist artist and brother of Irish Poet, William Butler Yeats.

Kerry Fisherman (1927), Jack B. Yeats

His work will be featured at the Irish National Gallery this September in an exhibition entitled, Jack B. Gates: Painting & Memory. 

4. Paul Henry (1877-1958) was primarily famous for his landscape paintings.

The Potato Diggers (1910-11), Paul Henry

You can clearly see how Henry was influenced by French artist, Jean François Millet (one of my favorites), whose work was often copied by Vincent Van Gogh. He was also influenced by Paul Cezanne and Paul Gauguin.

5. Norah McGuinness (1901-1988) is known for her illustrations.

McGuinness was a painter and illustrator who was influenced by modern Cubists. She designed sets for the Abbey and Peacock theatres and illustrated William B. Yeats’ Stories of Red Hanrahan and the Secret Rose (1927).

6. Louis le Brocquy (1916-2012) was an artist who dabbled in Cubism.

Travelling Woman with Newspaper (1947-48)
Louis le Brocquy

Remarkably, 12 years before his death, his Cubist painting, Travelling Woman with Newspaper fetched a whopping £1.2 million. The colorful divisions in the background remind me of Surrealist Marc Chagall's I and the Village, although I'd need to study this one a bit more to better understand what I am seeing. Apparently, the woman represents the artist's study of the traveling clans (~gypsies) who lived outside of conventional rules-based societies, hence the crumpling of the newspaper (I guess). The green kerchief is wrapped around her red hair almost becoming one with the green hills.