The Art of a Nation EXHIBITION

It is an ill wind...

I have just bought myself the catalogue of the new Irish exhibition, The Art of a Nation, at the Federation of British Artists Mall Galleries, in London. Sadly I don't think I am going to be able to visit the exhibition itself...

The background is that when 'The Nation' rescued the Irish banks, in the middle of that debacle, 'The Nation' found itself in possession of Allied Irish Banks' art collection - a commercial bank acting like a Renaissance prince. The collection has monetary value, of course - but any sum realised would, really, have been comparatively tiny in the midst of that crisis. And AIB's collection is an important contribution to The Nation's own history. So, the Nation has held on to it...

This is the Mall Galleries' web site...

http://www.mallgalleries.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/art-nation

'The Art of a Nation is the first major exhibition in London for 30 years that celebrates the story of Irish art from 1900 to the present day.
Drawing on the incomparable, award-winning collection of paintings, photography, tapestry and sculptures from the Allied Irish Banks and Crawford Art Gallery in Cork, this exhibition will include over 70 works by many of Ireland’s greatest artists...'

This is the Introduction to the Catalogue by Lewis McNaught, Director, Mall Galleries... Lewis McNaught does not put it like this, of course, but there is an Irish Diaspora Studies dimension here - studied by Lucy Cotter and others - where we need to understand the ways in which London and its art markets has shaped, and shapes, the development of Irish art. And artists...

http://www.mallgalleries.org.uk/about-us/blog/art-of-a-nation

'In recent years, we have had too few opportunities in this country to explore and evaluate the merits of Irish Art. Apart from a few commercial galleries that provide exhibition space for living, Irish-born painters, sculptors and photographers, it may surprise you to learn there has been no wide-ranging survey or other single exhibition in London providing an historical dimension to Irish Art of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries for more than 30 years...'

This is the Guardian's report on the exhibition...

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/may/13/hidden-history-irish-art-mall-galleries

'The paintings and sculptures all come from a collection assembled over decades by Allied Irish Banks (AIB), begun when it moved in 1980 to a grandiose new HQ. The collection was unusual because the bank set out not just to commission boardroom portraits but to collect backwards – to assemble a collection that traces the history of Irish art back into the 19th century. As Frances Ruane, who advised on acquisitions, notes in her catalogue introduction, the collection outgrew the lobbies and meeting rooms until the bank’s thousands of employees became accustomed to pictures hanging on almost every wall. The bank bought the work of young contemporary artists, which was cheap, as well as the work of Yeats, Orpen and Lavery, which even in the 1980s was not. Louis le Brocquy, who has several paintings and two glowing tapestries in the show, would become the first living Irish artist to smash the £1m barrier at auction...'

There is a really interesting Sean Keating, visible on the web pages.

The home of the collection is the Crawford Art Gallery, Cork - so maybe I will get to see it some day...

Patrick O'Sullivan