Irish Arts Review

Drawings, Paintings &Sculptures: The Catalogue of the Museums and Galleries of NorthernIreland by Eileen BlackReview by: Anne CrookshankIrish Arts Review Yearbook, Vol. 18 (2002), pp. 208-209Published by: Irish Arts ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25488342 .

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Book Reviews

CARRIGLAS HOUSE, Co. Longford: From Properties of Significant Architectural Interest in Ireland by Bord Failte. 'The truth is that these pages contain hidden treasures but it is tempting to conclude that it is intended that

they remain just that.'

Glin Castle, county Limerick and

Strokestown, county Roscommon. The

listings are arranged alphabetically by county but the information given is sparse.

Indeed, most listings include only the name of the owner of the property, the

time and date when it is open to the pub

lic and the fee payable (if any). I found it

surprising that such reticence is shown in

a booklet designed to inform the public about these national treasures. The book

let is a Bord Failte publication but it is not

very enlightening for the tourist.

For example, who could expect that

one of the entries for Dublin is 13-20

Grafton Street, now Marks and Spencers.

This entire building, except for the front

wall, was demolished in the early 1990s.

Equally odd is the inclusion of the 'front

facade of Merrion Hall' and Powerscourt

Townhouse. How can such structures be

included in a category of buildings of sig nificant architectural or historical inter

est? Is the taxpayer to understand that tax

relief for repairs on this new building is on

the same basis as for a national treasure

such as Clonalis House, county

Roscommon, the ancestral home of the

O'Connor family, with its fine Victorian

architecture and unique contents, such as

the library which contains documents and

books on the history of the O'Connor

Dons, the descendants of the last High

King of Ireland.

How is the interested reader to know

that Clontra county Dublin, is one of the

few domestic designs of the architects,

Deane and Woodward, dating from 1862 or that Fahanmura in Foxrock, county

Dublin is a rare example of the Moderne

or Art Deco style, built circa 1930? It is

noteworthy that none of the houses of

North Great George's Street is listed here

despite the fine work done in many of the

houses there. Is there some restriction in

this tax law which discourages owners

from availing of it ?

Outside Dublin, listings include

Riverstown, county Cork, with its wonder

ful plasterwork; and Frybrook, county

Roscommon, a fine house of about 1760

which is open at weekends. The truth is

that these pages contain hidden treasures,

but it is tempting to conclude that it is

intended that they remain just that.

It is perhaps a sad comment on the con

tinued lack of a proper system of grants

and support for the preservation of our

architectural heritage and its contents and

context - such as gardens and woodland

-

that owners who avail of this scheme are

less than anxious to advertise that their

house is open to the public. Of course,

there are security risks and some houses

set out elaborate pre-arrangements which

must be made in order to visit. Some own

ers are less than generous in their compli

ance with the required sixty open days per

year -

excluding almost all weekends -

when interested parties are likely to be

available to see a house.

Incidentally, do not expect to find this

book in your local book shop - it is avail

able only from Bord Failte.

CONOR GRIFFIN was one of the contributors to The

Four Courts: 200 Years (1996)

Drawings, Paintings & Sculptures: The

Catalogue of the Museums and Galleries

of Northern Ireland Compiled by Eileen Black

Museums and Galleries of Northern Ireland 2000

hlb?35

39lpp. 1,510colills 0-900-7641-385

Anne Crookshank

This catalogue is a remarkable achieve

ment and the editor Eileen Black has

done a fabulous job. It is a catalogue of

the holdings of pictures in all the depart ments in the Ulster Museum, the local

history or historical department as it is

now called, and the botanic and other sci

entific sections as well of course as the art

department itself. But it also includes the

large collections in the Armagh County Museum and the Folk and Transport museum which are now part of the

Museums and Galleries of Northern

Ireland, all administered as one entity.

Though Eileen Black has written previous list catalogues of the Ulster Museum's col

lections these have never been illustrated

and this time due to the generosity of the

publishers, Nicholson and Bass Ltd, a very

large number of items are illustrated in

colour, admittedly in quite a small size but

they are extremely well done, so that from

a research point of view the images are

very clear. There are also a number of the

museum's best works in full page size and

perhaps the worst reproduction occurs at

this point where the Morris Louis looks

quite unlike itself: brown and muddy.

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Irish Arts Review

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Book Reviews

The Ulster Museum has a collection of

high quality and an extraordinary variety

of paintings varying from little known

Florentine and North Italian painters of

the 17 th century to the very modern and

here, indeed, there is nothing to compete

with it in Dublin. The Irish collection still

has some serious gaps: there is no Thomas

Roberts, no Maclise, and a host of others

such as the Brocas family.

In the catalogue there seems to be some

items missing. Maybe they are only on

loan, but where are the Towgood Roches

in the Folk Museum? They are among the

outstanding and extremely important

watercolours of ordinary people in Ireland,

done in the second decade of the 19th

century; mostly they are humble folk who

sold fish, peat, or potatoes in fairs and

even mended your shoes. They were

sketched on sight and have not been mod

ified and gentrified in the studio like the

example in the Art Gallery itself. Another

large batch of drawings that I can't find are those by the Templetons who were

famous for there careful delineation of

seaside items like shells and other fauna

which they treated as scientific research

and their drawings are exquisite in their

detail. Another minor point is the selec

tion of illustrations: Mary Battersby is a

good watercolourist and as she is virtually

unknown the five illustrations are valu

able. But in quality she simply does not

compete with Richard Dunscombe Parker

whose birds are superb and it is a pity that

only three of his are reproduced.

Eileen Black has lacked courage in

attributing anonymous pictures. She is

perhaps right in this as Desmond

FitzGerald and myself are notorious for

dashing in where angels fear to tread. But,

to give an example, that beautiful head,

probably of a Bishop, from the Armagh Museum is by Latham, no doubt a Bishop of Clogher. I even listed him in an article I

wrote some years ago. Eileen's next work

is to write a catalogue with full details so

that everyone will know, for instance, that

Morris Harding did a great deal of the

sculpture in Belfast Cathedral. He wasn't

only interested in drawing animals. Now

we have the list we want to know all

about the pictures. Eileen Black found the

source that proved that the Bateson chil

dren were by Strickland Lowry and she

has done such noble work on Glen Wilson - to mention only two of her finds. The

historical collection is fascinating for an

Ulster woman like myself. I was delighted with the interior of Smithfield Market by Frank McKelvey as I remembered it as a

child. The unknown watercolour of a

19th-century drawing room adds to our

very limited stock of domestic interiors.

This catalogue has been a labour of love

but it has given Eileen Black little chance to shine and exhibit her scholarly powers.

The works from the non artistic sections

of the Museum and those at Cultra and

Armagh have never been listed and very few if any of the pictures have appeared before in illustration. It was an essential

start. One plea, which is in no way the

fault of the Museum, is the weight of the

catalogue. You can only read it on a table.

This problem is one for the paper manu

facturers. They should experiment and

find a source of lighter paper suitable for

colour reproductions.

Professor Anne Crookshank is the author, with

the Knight ofGlin, of The Painters of Ireland, c. 1600-1920 (London 1978)

Shifting Ground By Bruce Arnold, Dorothy Walker, Oliver

Dowling, Mebh Ruane, Caoimhin MacGiolla

Leith

Irish Museum of Modern Art p/b ?9.95

1-873654-4987

EV+A Compendium Edited by Paul O'Reilly

Gandon Editions 1999 p/b ?9.95

216 pp, 15 b/w 110 col ills 0-946846-278

Loans and Donations from the Foley

Collection

Irish Museum of Modem Art 2000

Ann Cremin

Nothing nicer can come through the let

terbox than a bundle of catalogues to

review. Loans and Donations from the Foley

Collection is a very slim volume which

includes a foreword by Declan McGonagle and an afterword by Dorothy Walker,

affording us a glimpse into the motivations

behind the choice of works on loan to the museum. As McGonagle points out, the

linking theme in the works seems to be an

interest in 'the manipulation of paint, as a

metaphor for reality.' The collection pro

vides a broad overview of Irish painting over the second half of the 20th century

STRONGBOW 1978/2000 by James Coleman: From Shifting Ground. This catalogue 'purports to retrace the Irish art scene from 1950 to 2000 with appropriate authors for each decade.'

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Irish Arts Review

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