The opening of Lindy Guinness's exhibition in the Solomon Gallery on Monday night quickly turned into an excuse for a long summer party. Lindy, who divides her time between London and her home in Clandeboyne in Northern Ireland, travelled extensively while working on this collection. The result is a charming series of oils which manages to make the Burren and the Yemen look like distant cousins, united by a greyish haze.
Lindy's mother, Lady Isabel Throckmorton, and her brother Billy Guinness, had dined with her in The Commons restaurant the night before, but couldn't stay for the opening. Her friend and fellow artist, Eleanor Fine, did stay, however. The man who travelled the furthest was the Italian surrealist Roberto Matta (known as Matta) and his wife of 30 years, Germana Matta, who arrived the day before, having heard about Lindy's show from London gallery owner Theo Waddington. Matta, who was resplendent in a Japanese pleated jacket, was a great friend of Lindy and her late husband, Sheridan Dufferin in the 1960s - a crowd that also included David Hockney.
Artist Brian Ballard, who also shows at the Solomon, was probably the luckiest man in the room, because he had got full value out of the glorious day - he was out painting in the sunshine in Howth by 7 a.m. Other artists included sculptor Barry Flanagan, who was joined by the man who casts all his work, Henry Abercrombie from London, and Bill Crozier, who is working on an exhibition for the RHA gallery in the autumn.
Afterwards, a posse moved on to supper at gallery-owner Suzanne Macdougald's place in Sandymount. The Knight of Glin, Desmond Fitzgerald and his wife Olda Fitzgerald were there with their daughter, Honor, while Thomas Packenham, whose book Meetings With Remarkable Trees has been made into a BBC series, came with his wife, Valerie Packenham. Eithne Healy of the Arts Council and Barbara Dawson of the Hugh Lane Gallery chatted about recent trips to New York.
Tony O'Reilly jnr and his wife Robin O'Reilly and Norma Smurfit also joined the party at Suzanne's, having checked out the show earlier in the week.
The art of networking
On Tuesday, Maire Geoghegan-Quinn was back to her old stomping ground when she was invited to do the honours at Stephen Cullen's new exhibition in the Hallward Gallery on Merrion Square, just around the corner from Government Buildings. Maire is busy tapping her memoirs into her trusty lap-top and admitted that, though she missed the gossiping in the bar after a Dail session, she didn't really miss the buzz of politics. "I can write about them all now, you see," she said, with a wicked grin - and indeed, a dispute had already broken out in the back of the gallery as several members of the civil service demanded to know whether they had been put in - or worse still, left out - of the book. Maire was still using her political clout - to Stephen's benefit - remarking that she saw a number of people from the Department of the Arts and she just knew they were eyeing up the biggest canvases - "Aren't you Mr Denneny?" she said, addressing Martin Denneny, who was accompanied by his wife, Aileen Connor of TV3.
Other folks who had come in from the sun-soaked evening to wish Stephen well included artist Gay O'Neill, whose exhibition of etchings opened at the Arts Club on Thursday; Tony O'Dalaigh, director of the Dublin Theatre Festival; Fair City director Noel O'Breen and his new wife, Amy O'Breen; actor Tara Quirke; composer Seoirse Bodley, and businesswoman, Mary Finan.
Rhyming season
Wednesday evening was so warm that many of the guests at the reading to mark the publication of The Oxford Book Of Ireland at the Bank of Ireland Arts Centre loitered around the entrance and looked as though they might just make a bolt for it. Ultimately, everyone did stay for what turned out to be a particularly good evening of readings introduced by poet Michael Longley, and rounded off by a short speech by editor Patricia Craig.
Poet Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill was among the readers; she has a new collection out in the autumn and is heading to the US shortly afterwards. Novelist Joe O'Connor has just finished the screenplay of his novel, Cowboys And Indians, for director Paddy Breathnach (I Went Down), who he has known since UCD days. Anthony Cronin, who caused great hilarity as he read from The Life Of Reilly, was accompanied by novelist Anne Haverty. who had just heard that her novel, One Day As A Tiger, had been selected as the Irish entry for the prestigious European Aristion prize for literature. Poet John Montague and novelist Elizabeth Wassell had hardly touched the ground since the ceremony in Belfast last week when he was officially awarded the first Irish Chair of Poetry. He described it as a little like the role of Poet Laureate in Britain except: "I'll be able to pass it on after three years." Montague has a new collection coming out in the autumn and Wassell will be releasing a new novel, Sleight Of Hand, at the same time.
Other readers included Nuala O'Faolain, who arrived from Belfast for the event; and Colm Toibin, who was accompanied by Lynn Geldof. Guests included Antony Farrell and Viv Guinness of Lilliput Press; booksellers Fred and Val Hanna; poet Greg Delanty, who has just published a new collection, Cormac Kinsella of Waterstones; poets Richard Murphy and Gerald Dawe, and Adrian Rice, poet and editor of the Abbey Press.
New takes on old masters
One of the most interesting exhibitions of recent times opened in the National Gallery on Tuesday evening. Several people, including its director Raymond Keaveney, remarked that the gallery is all too often dismissed as "a museum for old art by dead artists". The 30 artists and printmakers who created the works in "Art Into Art" were anything but dead, and their prints were fresh off the press.
The brainchild of artists who work in the Graphic Studio - in particular Geraldine O'Reilly - the exhibition consisted of prints inspired by paintings and sculptures in the National Gallery's collection. Caravaggio's The Taking Of Christ cropped up three times but few would have immediately suspected that Mick Cullen's chaotically colourful print had the same source as Felim Egan's or Robert Russell's work.
At least 25 of the artists involved wandered through the gallery on the night, including Dorothy Cross and Grace Weir; Taffina Flood, who was one of three artists to chose an Emil Nolde watercolour as her inspiration, and Stephen Lawlor, who was behind the art supermarket in Brown Thomas.
Other guests included Carmel Naughton, chairwoman of the gallery's board; art historian Kenneth McConkey; Green on Red gallery's Jerome O Drisceoil; Barbara Dawson of the Hugh Lane gallery; artist Cathy Delaney and Mary Avril Gillan, who was just back from a working trip to the US.
Relaunching the Titanik
It's a tradition by now that the Dublin launch of the Galway Arts Festival is nearly as rousing as the festival itself and Tuesday's lunch at Odessa restaurant was no exception. A clatter of the city's arts people gathered to hear the programme for the July festival, which is titanic in its scope this year - Theater Titanik from Germany will be constructing the doomed boat and sinking it again nightly in Cathedral car park. The programme notes: "Waterproof clothing advisable".
The other talking point was Macnas's production of Pat McCabe's play adapted from his book, The Dead School. McCabe couldn't be there as he is in London promoting his new book, Breakfast On Pluto, but actor Mick Lally, who is heading the cast, and director Joe O'Beirne, fielded plenty of questions. Joe directed Frank Pig Says Hello, the play of The Butcher Boy, and the play will be cast by Maureen Hughes, who was the casting director on the Neil Jordan film.
Ted Turton, director of the festival, also recommended The Circus Of Horrors, a bizarre night of chainsaw jugglers and characters such as "Wasp Boy", directed by Pierrot Bidon, creator of the French cult circus, Archaos. "Not everybody's cup of blood perhaps," Ted remarked drily.
Other folk chatting over lunch included Siobhan Bourke, who is leaving her post as executive producer at Rough Magic to pursue her interest in film; singer Gavin Friday, who is a big pal of Pat McCabe's; Carrie Crowley and Mike Maloney of RTE; the British Council's Harold Fish; comedian Mark Doherty and a trio of festival women - Ali Curran of the Dublin Fringe Festival, Marie Claire Sweeney of the St Patrick's Festival and Margaret McLoughlin of the Millennium Festival.