ANYONE VISITING Cork for Easter or, as the locals might put it, lucky enough to live there, should visit the Crawford Art Gallery in the city which is holding a temporary exhibition of the AIB Bank art collection recently donated to the State.
Don’t put it off. The exhibition ends next Saturday and the collection may not be on display again, in its entirety, for at least two years.
The donation by the bailed-out, and now State-owned, bank consists of 38 paintings and one sculpture and features work by leading Irish artists including Jack B Yeats, Paul Henry, Sir John Lavery, Sir William Orpen, Séan Keating and Roderic O’Conor. The Crawford’s director, Peter Murray, described the works as “the most substantial, serious and beautiful collection of art to come to the Crawford for 50 years”.
The donation, valued at €5 million, will eventually form part of the Crawford’s permanent collection following a decision by the Minister for Arts Jimmy Deenihan that it should go to Cork.
All 39 works are displayed in one room on the gallery’s first floor and entry to the exhibition is free. A specially-commissioned catalogue costs €12. When the temporary exhibition ends, 27 of the paintings will be returned – albeit temporarily – to AIB’s headquarters in Dublin.
Mr Murray explained that “12 of the works have been donated immediately” so they will stay in Cork – and on display – after the temporary exhibition ends.
However, the others will be returned to the bank and then be “gradually” donated to the Crawford over the next two years. The reason for the phased donation appears, quite simply, to be the bankers’ reluctance to part with all of the art in one fell swoop. The donation will leave big gaps on the walls of the AIB boardroom and offices of senior bank executives.
The State-owned Crawford Art Gallery at Emmet Place in Cork city centre has a permanent collection of some 2,000 works, including a renowned collection of Greek and Roman sculpture casts from the Vatican Museum.
AIB Art Collection at the Crawford Art Gallery, Cork, ends April 14th.
The 39 works donated to the State by AIB
Jack B Yeats:A Race in Hy Brazil
Jack B Yeats: Now or Never
Jack B Yeats:Shelling Peas in Moore Street
Séan Keating:On the Run/War of Independence
William Scott: Blue Still Life with Knife
John Luke:The Lock at Edenderry
Mary Swanzy: Samoan Scene
Paul Henry:Lough Altan, County Donegal
Roderic O'Conor:Red Rocks Near Pont-Aven
Walter Osborne:A November Morning
FE McWilliam: Woman in a Bomb Blast (sculpture)
Patrick Collins:A Place with Stones
Gerard Dillon: Cut Out Drop Out
Patrick Collins:Travelling Tinkers
Roderic O'Conor:Anemones
Séan Keating:West of Ireland Quayside with figures
Colin Middleton:Moonlight Ballyholme
Colin Middleton:Winter: Camden Street
Harry Kernoff:Sunny Day, Dublin
William Leech: Chrysanthemums
William Leech:Studio Garden
Mainie Jellett:Composition with 3 Elements
Maurice MacGonigal:Races Ballyconneely, County Galway
Aloysius O'Kelly:Corpus Christi Procession
Colin Middleton:Market Day
Harry Kernoff:The Forty Foot, Sandycove
Joseph Malachy Kavanagh:Cockle Pickers
Nathaniel Hill:Goosegirl in a Breton Farmyard
Patrick Collins:Bog Country
Tony O'Malley:Ripe Cornfield in the Wind
Tony O'Malley:Big White Flower Pot
Sir William Orpen: The Boxer
Gerard Dillon: Still Life
William Crozier:Walking to the Sea
William Crozier:The River Boundary (Lough Hyne)
Sir John Lavery:Habiba
Grace Henry:Claddagh Market
Micheál Farrell:Au Soleil D'Or
Evie Hone:Landscape, Co Wicklow
