On the Town: Poets and painters gathered for the opening of the Barrie Cooke retrospective in the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, this week.
Poet John Montague, who first met Cooke in the 1950s, said the artist "likes poets. He was very close friends with Ted Hughes, mostly because he was a fisherman". Dennis O'Driscoll and Seamus Heaney also came to salute their friend, the artist, who is the subject of the 2003 Nissan Art Project at the RHA in Ely Place.
He has "explored the landscape in a very exhaustive way", said Montague.
Artist Nick Miller, who is Cooke's neighbour in Kilmactranny, Co Sligo, on the shore of Lough Arrow, came too, along with artists Camille Souter, Stephen McKenna, Louis Le Brocquy, Anne Madden, Martin Gale, Patrick Pye and Bill Woodrow from the UK.
Bernadette Kiely, who now paints in Cooke's former studio in Thomastown, Co Kilkenny, also came to view the work.
Paddy Moloney, of The Chieftains, recalled knowing Cooke "going back donkeys' years" when he was running Claddagh Records. Cooke designed the cover of the Claddagh album, Crow, which featured Ted Hughes reading his poetry in his home in Devon.
Another friend, artist John Kelly RHA, told of exhibiting with Cooke 40 years ago in the David Hendrix Gallery on St Stephen's Green. He recalled his "big oil paintings of salmon jumping the weir" from the 1960s. "I never forgot them," he said. "They were among the best works I had ever seen at that point."
Margaret Egan, a Dublin-based artist, who will be showing in October in the Courcoux Gallery, in Hampshire, England, loved the show. "It's so interesting to see the progress from the first one." She singled out Rakaia Gorge from Cooke's New Zealand series as one of "the most peaceful and strongest paintings".
Also spotted at the opening was Rosaleen Linehan, who is preparing for a Finnish play at Project, called Olga, to be directed by Lynne Parker; British Ambassador Stewart Eldon; writer Elizabeth Wassell; U2 manager Paul McGuinness and broadcaster Teri Garvey.
Patrick Murphy, director of the RHA, said Cooke's work is "remarkable for its rigour, its vigour and its strength". The exhibition "will offer the public the opportunity to view the genius of his painting and the searing accuracy of his vision".