Irish Arts Review

The Hero with a Thousand FacesAuthor(s): Peter MurraySource: Irish Arts Review (2002-), Vol. 26, No. 1 (Spring, 2009), pp. 66-67Published by: Irish Arts ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20493478 .

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EXH IB ITI ON

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T he acquisition in December 2008, by the Crawford Art Gallery, of Edward McGuire's 1972 Portrait of Anthony Cronin (Fig 3) represents a significant addi

tion to a growing collection of portraits of Irish writ

ers. Cronin follows close on the heels of Jonathan Swift, whose

1735 portrait by Francis Bindon was acquired by the Crawford in

2006 (Fig 5), and Conal Creedon, by contemporary artist Eileen Healy, acquired that same year. A number of the Crawford 'liter

ary' portraits have been in the collection since the 19th and early

20th centuries but many are relatively recent acquisitions, made over the past decade. Other notable writers represented are

Edmund Burke by James Barry, Elizabeth Bowen by Patrick

Hennessy (Fig 2), John Montague by Barrie Cooke and three sep

arate paintings, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett and W B Yeats, by

Louis le Brocquy. The writer Frank O'Connor is represented by

two portraits, one by Thomas Ryan PRHA, and an earlier work by

Norah McGuinness (Fig 4). A portrait commissioned in 2005, of

poet Micheal O'Shiadhail, by Michael O'Dea, was shown at the

Royal Hibemian Academy, while novelist Aidan Higgins is repre sented by a portrait painted two years earlier by Suzy O'Mullane

(Fig 1). The writer Sebastian Barry is represented through a 1991

study by John Minihan, a photographer well-known for insightful

portraits of Irish writers, most notably Samuel Beckett, but also

Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill, Mannix Flynn, Eilean Ni Chuilleanain,

Patrick Galvin, John McGahem, and others.

This collection of portraits of Irish writers is being assembled with a view to its travelling as a touring exhibition to museums

and galleries in Britain, America and further afield, particularly

to universities with Irish studies departments. It is a significant

collection which augments the long-established portrait collec tion at the National Gallery of Ireland, as well as portraits in the

Abbey Theatre, the Arts Council of Ireland and other collec

tions. Both the Abbey Theatre and the Arts Council of Ireland

are lenders to the exhibition. Ireland's contribution to world cul

ture has been assessed mainly through the work of its writers,

with visual arts traditionally seen as less important. Even in the

66 6IRISH ARTS REVIEW SPRING 2009

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early 19th century, talented young artists such as Daniel Maclise

found that recognition of their talents came more easily if they

linked with the world of writers. Maclise's Portrait of Lady

Blessington is one of many depictions by this Cork artist of Irish

literary talent in late Regency London. These national collec

tions through combining, as it were, the talents of outstanding

visual artists such as Sean O'Sullivan, Robert Ballagh, Michael

O'Dea and Barrie Cooke, with writers such as Myles na

gCopaleen, Laurence Sterne and Hugh Leonard, provide a

broader window into visual culture and art history in Ireland.

The portrait of Anthony Cronin by Edward McGuire is an

important work by a painter who depicted some of Ireland's

greatest writers, notably Seamus Heaney (Ulster Museum),

Monk Gibbon, Pearse Hutchinson and Michael Longley. Cronin,

poet, philosopher and chronicler of Dublin's literary world of the

1960s, is depicted sitting at a table, gazing impassively at the

viewer. Arranged on the table are a number of objects, including

a cooking pot and a tailor's iron. McGuire often employed objects

in his paintings in a manner familiar to the Netherlandish artists

of the 17th century, where everyday objects were not included for

whimsical reasons, but as specific elements, discrete, but when

read together, amounting to a visual story. For instance, Cronin's

father was a tailor, and the iron refers to this element in his fam

Even in the early 19th century, talented young artists such as Daniel Maclise found that recognition of their talents came more easily if they linked with the world of writers

ily history. The empty plate can be read as referring to Patrick

Kavanagh's poem The Great Hunger, while even the trelliswork

behind the writer, it has been suggested, may refer to the central

character in At Swim-Two-Birds, by Flann O'Brien. The Portrait of

Elizabeth Bowen by Patrick Hennessy, also a painting carefully

composed within a painstaking Realist tradition, shows the writer standing at the head of the staircase of the family's ancestral

home, Bowenscourt, a large Georgian mansion in north Cork,

which was demolished in the mid 20th century. The painting

therefore becomes all the more significant, placing the writer

within her childhood home, the loss of which, in her later years,

was keenly felt. There is poignancy also in the portrait of

Jonathan Swift, which dates from two centuries earlier. Painted

by Francis Bindon around 1735, the Portrait of Jonathan Swift is a

sympathetic portrayal of the author of Gulliver's Travels, A Modest

Proposal and Drapier's Letters. The portrait shows Swift at a time

when several of his close friends, including John Gay and John

Arbuthnot, had died, while the great love of his life, Esther

Johnson, or 'Stella' had passed away ten years before, leaving

Swift increasingly disillusioned and facing a lonely old age. The

artist, a friend of Swift, conveys much of the pathos of these years

in this down-to-earth portrait. Swift noted, with characteristic

acerbity, in his diary for June 1735: 'I have been fool enough to

sit for my portrait at full-length by Mr. Bindon.' However this

half-length canvas, showing the satirist without the wig so com

mon in 18th-century portraits, was painted probably in the same

year and is a sensitive portrayal of the writer. Apart from church

men such as Dr Delany and Archbishop Cobbe, Bindon is

thought to have painted the blind harper Turlough O'Carolan in

a portrait now in the National Gallery of Ireland. This portrait

was kept by Jonathan Swift in the Deanery of St Patrick's and was

bequeathed to his housekeeper Mrs Ridgeway, in whose family it

was preserved for many years. It was acquired by the Crawford

Art Gallery in January 2007, to mark the accession to the status

of National Cultural Institution, with funds provided by the

Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism. N

PETER MURRAY is Director of the Crawford Art Gallery, Cork.

'The Hero with a Thousand Faces: A Celebration of Irish Writers',

Crawford Art Gallery, Cork, until 30 May 2009.

1 SUZY O MULLANE

Portrait of Aidan

Higgins 2002

oil on board

106.7 x 91.5cm

2 PATRICK HENNESSY

RHA (1915-80)

Portrait of Elizabeth

Bowen at

Bowenscourt

oil on canvas

91 x 71cm

3 EDWARD MCGUIRE

RHA (1932-1986)

Portrait of Anthony

Cronin oil on canvas

60 x 72cm

4 NORAH MCGUINNESS

(1903-80) Portrait of

Frank O'Connor

oil on board

68 x 54cm

5 FRANCIS BINDON

(c. 1690-1765) Portrait of Jonathan

Swift oil on canvas

76 x 63.50cm

SPRING 2009 IRISH ARTS REVIEW 1 67

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