Irish Arts Review

The Douglas Hyde GalleryAuthor(s): George DawsonSource: Irish Arts Review (1984-1987), Vol. 4, No. 4 (Winter, 1987), pp. 39-42Published by: Irish Arts ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20492030 .

Accessed: 18/06/2014 04:25

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Irish Arts Review is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Irish Arts Review(1984-1987).

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.31 on Wed, 18 Jun 2014 04:25:18 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

IRISH ARTS REVIEW

THE DOUGLAS HYDE GALLERY

Thirty years ago Trinity College was barren of interest in the visual arts.

Dublin had only three established com mercial galleries and two main annual art exhibitions: the Royal Hibernian Academy and the Irish Exhibition of Living Art. Since then the standing of the visual arts, and their popularity, has developed greatly. The present account is limited to their development in

Trinity College and focusses on the origin and present performance of the Douglas Hyde Gallery.

In 1959 two science students, Galway Johnson and Nicholas Carey, and two classics students, John Killen and Alan Elliott, founded the College Gallery from which students resident in college could borrow pictures for their rooms. From twenty seven framed reproduct ions, provided by our Graduates Assoc iation, the College Gallery expanded over the next three years, with assist ance from the Arts Council and the Gulbenkian Foundation, to include original paintings and graphics. At present the College Gallery consists of about three hundred original works; the reproductions are now in Dublin hospitals.

The College Gallery stimulated dis cussion among students of their choice

Professor George Dawson, Head of the Department of Genetics at Trinity College, Dublin, recounts the origin and function of the Douglas

Hyde Gallery.

of work. From lunch-hour lectures, on occasions when the works were dis played for choosing, grew an awareness that knowledge of the visual arts would permeate the college community only if some students were seriously studying this subject. A course was established

which enabled students to choose visual art as one of their three subjects in the third and fourth years of the General

Arts Degree. This was a pilot experiment for four years, involving lectures on the classical, medieval and modern periods, financed by our graduates. The number of students who chose the course was so large that the College decided to establish a History of Art Department and from 1967 began appointing perman ent full-time staff.

At this time the New Library, now called the Berkeley Library, was being built. Some space was included for new books which would arrive within the next decade. The College decided that

part of this space could be used tempor arily as an Exhibition Hall until needed for book storage. A committee of staff and students arranged over thirty exhib itions in the Exhibition Hall from 1967-76 with no grant from the college, no administrative or secretarial assist ance, but with much support from the Arts Council and the co-operation of many.

The success of the Exhibition Hall pointed to the desirability of having a permanent gallery for temporary exhib itions in the college. Its best remembered exhibitions are the Picasso retrospect ive (attendance 42,000), Light and

Movement (attendance 11,000), the first exhibition in Europe of Banners by modern American artists including Dine, Warhol, Lichtenstein, Rivers, Indiana, Avery, Lindner and others;

more banners were bought in Dublin than when the exhibition moved to Paris. The Henry Moore retrospective and the exhibitions of Contemporary African Art, Tapestries by Mategot, the Graphic Works of Rouault, Braque, Moore, the Pop Art of major American and British artists, the first acrylic works of Karel Appel and the modern works from the Ulster Museum are exhibitions also well remembered. The many exhib

B? i ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~J

The Douglas Hyde Gallery. Photograph Antoine E. Raffoul.

-39

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.31 on Wed, 18 Jun 2014 04:25:18 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

IRISH ARTS REVIEW

THE DOUGLAS HYDE GALLERY

itions which focussed on Irish work included retrospective of Paul Henry, of

Norah McGuinness and the exhibition of Irish Silver 1630-1820.

The Exhibition Hall was needed for library use from 1976 and attention turned to the prospect of incorporating a gallery in the Arts and Social Sciences building, then at the design stage. No public funds were available to build a gallery and the estimated cost was raised from the Gulbenkian Foundation and others. The College agreed to meet any escalation of cost. The architect, as for the Berkeley Library, was Paul Koralek

who located the gallery at the building's Nassau Street entrance. - The design marries very flexible display facilities with a pleasant architectural environ ment. The only criticism of the design has come from those who prefer creat ing exhibitions in neutral rectangular

white areas of no architectural interest. The gallery was opened by Mr. Jack

Lynch, in the presence of Mr. Cathal 0 Dailaigh, on 28 March 1978. From the beginning it has been supported jointly by Trinity College and the Arts Council and is now formally a private company run by their nominees. Its name arose from a wish not to imply an exclusive Trinity College role for the gallery; in

the Berkeley Library the room had been called the Trinity College Exhibition Hall. Douglas Hyde, the first President of Ireland, was a Trinity graduate and had long continuing associations with the college. He had no memorial in

Dublin and it seemed particularly appropriate that the main facility in this Arts and Social Sciences Building, which was orientated to Dublin and to Ireland, should bear his name.

The development of the gallery has been in a college increasingly aware of the visual arts. Concourses, meeting rooms and libraries now have many fine pictures; in the squares of the college are large sculptures by Henry Moore, Alexander Calder and Arnaldo Pomo doro. There has been an easy accept ance of the Douglas Hyde Gallery as a natural development for Trinity College and its relations with the city and beyond. Its central prominence affirms the value of the ongoing tradition of visual art. The variety of its exhibitions focusses attention on today's explorat ions and developments and enhances our awareness of some major achieve ments in the recent past.

Sean McCrum was appointed Exhib itions Officer in September 1977 and served until June 1982 with an Exhibit

ions Committee of staff and students. Between 1982 and 1984 this committee continued to run the gallery, closely following Sean McCrum's initiatives. It

was in these two years that the Arts Council expressed the wish that the gallery's organization be more formally established. Negotiations with the Col lege resulted in agreement on establish ing a private company with four members of its Board chosen by the Arts Council and four by the College, the College having the right to nominate the Chairman from among its four members. The new Board appointed Patrick Murphy Director of the Gallery in July 1984.

Up to 1984 the exhibitions included the Art of the Pacific, St. Gall Monas tery, the Bauhaus, Theatre Design by Erwin Piscator, Kentucky Quilts and exhibitions of works by Jo Baer, Escher,

Max Ernst, Morandi, David Nash, Miro Graphics and a spectacular exhibition by Edward Kienholz. Among Irish exhib itions were those of the work of Oisin

Kelly, John Luke, Camille Souter, Patrick Collins, Patrick Scott, F. E.

McWilliam, Sean Scully, Tom Carr,

RIGHT Frank Stella, Pillar and Cones Series, 1984.

Exhibited 1985. Photograph John Kellett.

Felim Egan Exhibition 1984. Photograph John Kellett.

-40

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.31 on Wed, 18 Jun 2014 04:25:18 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

S~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~J

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.31 on Wed, 18 Jun 2014 04:25:18 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

IRISH ARTS REVIEW

THE DOUGLAS HYDE GALLERY

Seamus Murphy, James Coleman and the architect, Kevin Roche.

The change in the Gallery's structure from 1984 has resulted in tighter fin ancial control and administration. It has also resulted in a stronger focus on work by individual contemporary Irish and European artists at the expense of wide diversity of exhibitions. It may well be that such a sharper focus follows the great increase in galleries and exhib itions in Dublin generally. While other galleries may develop their own individ ual image, it is especially appropriate that a gallery located in a college should choose to best serve national interests by focussing on the explorations and achievements of contemporaries.

The exhibitions from overseas artists have included 11 Berlin sculptors, Eisenstaedt photographs, David Hockney photographs, Frank Stella, Sidney Nolan, Karel Appel, German expressionist graphics, Per Kirkeby, Robert Janz and works by Liebermann, Slevoght and Corinth. Exhibitions of work by Irish artists have included Felim Egan, Patrick Ireland, Tony O'Malley, Barrie Cooke, Gene Lambert photographs, Brian Eno's installation, Eilis O'Connell and thematic exhibitions of work by women artists, Irish Art Society draw ings, the Allied Irish Bank Collection and 'Directions Out', an exhibition which derived from the response of Northern artists to the problems of Northern Ireland.

Associated with these and many other exhibitions is an educational pro gramme, developed as much as finances permit. In 1986 forty twenty-minute talks were given to secondary school

Richard Deacon, In Two Minds, 1985. Exhibited 1985.

Photograph John Kellett.

groups by arrangement; twice yearly workshops are held in association with the Education Department of the

National College of Art and Design. British Airways sponsored two sets of lectures. Lectures for Leaving Certifi cate pupils were given by Barrie Cooke, Sue McNab and John Hutchinson and a forum for education workshops has been established with five secondary schools. More generally the Douglas Hyde Gallery now publishes exhibition leaflets, a regular newsletter and major catalogues of some exhibitions as well as running a shop with about one hun dred book titles, and an extensive range of art journals.

The Director also tries hard to develop the Gallery's role in providing

exhibits and exhibitions for other gal leries in Ireland. In 1986 the Gene

Lambert Exhibition was seen in Water ford, Wexford, Limerick and Derry. The Barrie Cooke Exhibition was mounted at the Limerick Municipal Gallery and the Crawford Municipal Gallery, Cork. The A.I.B. Collection also went on tour to the Crawford and to the Ulster Museum.

Innovations develop by experience and by the initiative and judgement of the people involved. Despite financial limitations, the Gallery succeeds in relating well to many artists, national and international, and to other galleries in Ireland and abroad. During this year,

Douglas Hyde Gallery exhibitions will have been seen in England and Den mark, and in the U.S.A. at Washington and Boston. The Gallery's education and public relations programmes are well supported and it has a good spon sorship scheme for banks and commer cial firms and a very successful Private Patronage Programme for those who wish to be closely associated with the Gallery. Attendances at exhibitions have risen from 30,000 in 1983 to 80,000 in 1986.

My own pleasure in the Douglas Hyde Gallery is in the way it has succeeded in opening doors to inform ative and enjoyable experiences for so many people. However, there is still much to be done. I wish further success to the Board of the Gallery, to Patrick

Murphy, Jennie Rogers, Gillian Tipton and the many students and others who work with them.

George Dawson

-42

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.31 on Wed, 18 Jun 2014 04:25:18 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions