THERE was nothing so vulgar as a price tag at the IMMA on Tuesday night for Louis le Brocquy's major retrospective. The President, Mrs Robinson, arrived with husband Nick to do the honours. One wag described their arrival "like a parting of the Red Sea" with the large crowd pressing up against the corridor walls as the processional party made its entrance. The President, escorted by the artist, was followed by her husband, with Anne Madden on his arm. People remained hugging the walls for rather a long time after their passage.
The le Brocquy boys were there the dashing Alexis escorted his aunt, the artist Melanie le Brocquy, while Pierre, who works with his father, handling the business side of things, was busy working the packed room.
Actress Dana Winter arrived from Wicklow for the opening and was escorted by Gordon Lambert. IMMA's architect Shay Cleary was there with his wife Lulu he was looking rather bouyant despite having just missed the prestigious contract to design the extension to the National Gallery, which was won by a British firm, Benson and Forsyth.
The latest arrival on the arts sponsorship scene, Nissan's Gerry O'Toole, was in the crowd he's just put up a generous £40,000 for an inner city outdoor installation and entries have been flooding in from as far away as Brazil. Let's hope the judges of this particular installation are wearing their sensible hats when they review the entries to prevent it looking like the "chime in the slime".