Irish painter-etchers looked abroad for their inspiration, direction and markets from the 1880s, writes Angela Griffith and Anne Hodge
In 1910, the newly-elected president of the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dermod O’Brien, organised one of the largest survey exhibitions of printmaking ever staged in Ireland or Britain. O’Brien, though not a printmaker, was a collector of prints. The purpose of the display was to demonstrate to the Irish public ‘what really fine prints can be’ and included a wide range of works from 15th-century Old Master prints to contemporary impressions.1 Ultimately, it was hoped that the exhibition would encourage young Irish artists to take up the medium and to stimulate a new market for contemporary fine art print in Dublin.
Research into theoretical principles across the fields of art, science and aesthetics imbue Nuala O’Donovan’s work, writes Mark Ewart
Eamonn Doyle’s portraits of Dubliners are unposed, untroubled by vanity and full of momentum, writes Stephanie McBride
