Earlier this year, Tipperary County Museum initiated a vital research project which focused on the origins of its municipal art collection. Art Historian, Catherine Marshall was appointed Curator in Residence at Tipperary County Museum to oversee this particular project. The result of Catherine’s findings will be documented in a specialised catalogue in early 2019 and the accompanying exhibition ‘Reflections’ will exhibit approximately 65 paintings which have remained unseen by the general public for many years.
This Tipperary Art Collection is the result of active, committed and sustained citizenship by a small group of people, from those who established the South Tipperary Fine Arts Club in the 1940s, to individual donors like William English in the 1980s and more recently Tipperary County Council S.R., South Tipperary County Council and our now unified Tipperary County Council. They wanted to provide opportunities for people with little access to the visual arts to see good quality local, national and international artwork, to inspire new generations of artists and collectors through the quality of the art they collected and to give Co. Tipperary an art heritage to be proud of.
Thanks to their voluntary activities this collection now boasts over 100 artworks that encompass artistic achievements over time (the oldest work is a 17th century painting of “The Death of Adonis”) to work by contemporary artists such as Samuel Walsh, Michael Coleman and Kate MacDonagh. Portraits by national figures such as John Butler Yeats, William Conor and Sean Keating, sit side by side with views of Clonmel by local artists like Lilla Perry and Edward O’Connor. Irish Modernism initiated by artists like William Leech and Frances Kelly and the work of local sculptor John Burke all sits alongside prints by Robert Ballagh, Patrick Pye and EJ Peters.
The outstanding message of this collection is to remind us of what can be achieved, by a group of generous, high-minded volunteers, especially when supported by their Local Authority.
This project and much valued research would not have been possible without vital funding from the Creative Ireland Programme and the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht.
The Museums exhibition ‘Reflections’ an Art Collection for Tipperary, will be open to the public from Saturday 17th November 2018 – May 2019.
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Admission is free. Contact Tipperary County Museum T: 0761 06 5252
Twitter: @tipperarymuseum Facebook: @TipperaryCountyMuseum
Opened Tuesday – Saturday 10am to 4.45pm.
Closed Sundays, Mondays and Bank Holidays.
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