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| 13 Mar 2008 09:28:48 am |
 Niland Art Collection/ Sligo Landscapes |
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The Niland Gallery is called after one of Sligo’s Nora Niland. In the 1950s, Nora was instrumental in establishing the Sligo Municipal Art Collection, which today bears her name. As county librarian Nora spotted the importance of the connection between Sligo and the Yeats family. In the 1950s, Nora was instrumental in establishing the Sligo Municipal Art Collection, which today bears her name.
Niland was appointed Sligo County Librarian in 1945, however her unique zeal and vision far extended beyond her post. She was quick to spot the yet untapped potential of the Yeats connection with Sligo and became instrumental in the formation of the Yeats Society.
In 1958, Niland found herself planning the first International Yeats Summer School. With the event looming, Nora hit upon the idea of borrowing five works by Jack B. Yeats, from the Capuchin Annual in Dublin, to exhibit for the duration of the summer school. These works consisted of three large oil paintings, Communicating with Prisoners, The Funeral of Harry Boland, and The Island Funeral, along with two smaller watercolours, Market Day and The Star Gazer. Over the course of the exhibition, Niland came to believe that these paintings would make a great permanent addition to the cultural hub of Sligo, and set about raising the £3,000 needed to purchase them. Although it took her two years, Niland’s determination ensured that the paintings remained in Sligo and formed the nucleus of what has now become the Niland Collection.
During the course of her fundraising, Niland made some invaluable contacts, not least of whom was James Healy. Healy was the New York born son of Irish immigrants, and had amassed a great fortune on the stock exchange. Both he and his wife, Josephine, had a passion for the west of Ireland and were avid collectors of Irish art. Between 1965-1966, Healy generously gave Nora Niland donations of almost thirty paintings in memory of his parents John and Catherine Healy. Included in these gifts were many important works by both John and Jack Butler Yeats.
In 1975, after the death of his wife, Healy donated her entire collection of modern Irish art, consisting of 35 works, to the Sligo Municipal Collection. This bequest contained works by Maurice McGonigal, Sean Keating, and Paul Henry. By the time Niland retired in 1979, she had acquired 148 paintings, 49 of them by Jack B. Yeats. During her tenure as County Librarian, Niland had purchased the old Congregational Church and Manse on Stephan’s Street. The Church became the new county library, while a permanent exhibition space was established in the Manse. This space did not prove suitable and the collection was frequently moved around until 2001, when purpose-built Niland Gallery was opened on the site of the Model School.
The collection is significant for its sizeable number of works by Jack B. Yeats many of which record experiences and memories of his time living in Sligo and its environs. There are many other works that relate specifically to the Sligo landscape, or have been created by artists who live or were born in Sligo, such as Constance Gore-Booth, Maeve de Marcievicz, Barrie Cooke and Nick Miller.
Paul Henry, Estella Solomons, Sean Keating, among many others are also represented in the collection which is exhibited in purpose-built galleries. The work in the collection includes painting, drawing, 2D work in mixed media, and sculpture. The artworks date from c.1890 to 2003 and are available, by application, for scholarly research. Works continue to be purchased for the collection from living Irish artists, and as such it can offer vital support to their careers and recognition of their work. Exhibitions from the collection are changed several times per year. Recent exhibitions of the Niland Collection have included a selection of female artists from the collection; a selection of work by Yeats; and selections curated by Patti Smith and Irish artist Isabel Nolan.
Some Sligo-related artworks in the collection:
Veronica Bolay ( b.1941) Lighthouse, Sligo Bay 1972 watercolour
Henk Breedveld (1918-1999) Glencar undated Oil on canvas
Henk Breedveld (1918-1999) Sligo Races undated Oil on canvas
John Brennan View of Sligo Abbey undated Pen and ink
Barrie Cooke (b.1931) Knocknarea I 2001 oil on canvas
Barrie Cooke (b.1931) Tench Fishing 1974 Oil on board+mixed media
Barrie Cooke (b.1931) Slow Dance on the Forest Floor II 1976 Oil on Board and Mixed media
Maeve De Markievicz (1901-1962) The Steps 1958 oil on board
Maeve De Markievicz (1901-1962) Knocknarea from Lissadell 1961 oil on board
Maeve De Markievicz (1901-1962) Lissadell Hse. and Benbulben 1961 oil on board
Maeve De Markievicz (1901-1962) Dutch Barn 1959 oil on board
Maeve De Markievicz (1901-1962) Blackcurrent Harvest 1958 oil on board
Maeve De Markievicz (1901-1962) Sunday at Kenwood Iveagh Bequest) 1960 oil on board
Maeve De Markievicz (1901-1962) Autumn Evening, Devon 1960 oil on board
Maeve De Markievicz (1901-1962) Avenue at Crushmore no date unknown
Casimir Dunin Markievicz Landscape with Cattle oil on canvas
Percy French (1854-1920) A view of Sligo Quay 1911 Watercolours
Constance Gore-Booth (1868-1927) Landscape 1905 oil on board
Constance Gore-Booth (1868-1927) Landscape 1905 oil on board
Constance Gore-Booth (1868-1927) View of a Lodge near Lissadell House undated Oil
Constance Gore-Booth 1868-1927 ) Untitled undated oil on board
Louis le Brocquy ( b. 1916 ) The Tain - 15 prints lithographic prints
Nick Miller (b. 1962) Portrait of Barrie Cooke 1997 oil on linen
Elizabeth Yeats (1868-1940 ) Rosses Point 1899 Watercolour
Elizabeth Yeats (1868-1940) Rosses Point, taking in Deadman's Point watercolour
Jack B. Yeats (1871-1957) A Sunday Morning in Sligo 1898 Watercolour |
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Category : Representations
| Posted By : Sarah |  Comments[62] |  Trackbacks [0] |
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| 16 Mar 2008 08:54:29 am |
| Three Ballrooms |
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The Ballroom of Romance is located in Glenfarne. There is some historical information posted on the Breifne website about it:
http://www.breifne.ie/content.asp?ID=1969
The Rainbow in Glenfarne was built by the late John McGivern in early 1934. John was a native of Brockagh, Glenfarne, Co Leitrim and in his late teens he, like so many other people from the area, emigrated to the USA. While there he was involved in the radio and entertainment business. However, it was always his ambition to set up his own entertainment business and he returned to his native Glenfarne in the early thirties. He then purchased a plot of land at a cross roads in the town land of Brockagh Lower along the N16 Enniskillen to Sligo road, where he built the hall, locally known as the Nissan Hut.
The Glenfarne town blog: http://www.glenfarne.com/general/the-ballroom-of-romance-comes-home/
In addition to this Ballroom, there are two other ballrooms of romance that together form a trilogy of sorts, a bit like Joseph Kosuth’s Three Chairs.
The first of these representations is a short story written by William Trevor, also called The Ballroom of Romance. The story goes that Trevor was inspired to write the story while passing by the structure on the road one day – there is something uniquely striking about a glorified barn adorned with a colourful rainbow and the legend The Ballroom of Romance.
The third ballroom is the film adaptation of Trevor’s short story. It's directed by Pat O'Connor and made in 1982, starring Brenda Fricker, Mick Lally, Colm Toibin and Cyril Cusack. It was filmed in Ballycroy, Co. Mayo: http://www.mayo-ireland.ie/Mayo/Towns/Ballycroy/Ballycroy.htm
I am as interested in Trevor’s idea of the Ballroom, and the fiction that sprang from it, as the site itself.
Photograph by Gareth Kennedy, taken on the Buseireann bus from Enniskillen to Manorhamilton, 2006. |
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Category : Representations
| Posted By : Sarah | Comments[46] | Trackbacks [0] |
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| 16 Mar 2008 08:50:52 am |
| Technology of its Time: the Claude Glass |
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While most of my research here, and in general, has focussed on viewing technologies from the recent past (1960s – 1980s), I wanted to make a post on some older things, specifically the Claude glass as a way of looking at landscape.
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The Claude glass is named after renowned French landscape painter, Claude Lorrain.The Claude glass is a contraption small enough to be held in the hand, similar in size and appearance to a lady’s makeup compact. This is important as it was made to be a portable technology and its popularity grew in line with the emerging tourist culture in the 1800s… It was an important early device for consuming landscape views and turning sights into sites.
They were used by picturesque artists in England in the late 18th and early 19th centuries as a frame for drawing sketches of picturesque landscapes. The user would turn his back on the scene to observe the framed view through the tinted mirror—in a sort of pre-photographic lens—which added the picturesque aesthetic of a subtle gradation of tones. Father Thomas West in his A Guide to the Lakes, 1778, explained "The person using it ought always to turn his back to the object that he views. It should be suspended by the upper part of the case…holding it a little to the right or the left (as the position of the parts to be viewed require) and the face screened from the sun."
The device itself is a handheld, slightly tinted, convex mirror. As such it has a slight ‘fisheye’ effect so that the edges of the view tend to warp slightly. This is a compositional technique seen in Claude’s paintings, typically the tall trees that tend to frame his compositions, known as coulisses (named after the side wings in theatre).
Reverend William Gilpin, the inventor of the picturesque ideal, advocated the use of a Claude glass saying, "they give the object of nature a soft, mellow tinge like the colouring of that Master".
Also known as 'Black Mirrors', they were widely used by tourists and amateur artists, who quickly became the targets of satire. Hugh Sykes Davies observed their facing away from the object they wished to paint, commenting: "It is very typical of their attitude to Nature that such a position should be desirable". ( James Buzard (2002). "The Grand Tour and after 1660-1840", in The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing)
Links:
Claude Glass at the V & A: http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/paintings/features/cheating/claude/index.html
Article in Art Times Journal by Raymond J. Steiner:
http://www.arttimesjournal.com/peeks/Dec04p&p.htm
The Claude Glass and the Picturesque:
http://web2.uwindsor.ca/hrg/amckay/Claudemirror.com/Home.html
Link to the book, 'The Claude Glass - Use and Meaning of the Black Mirror in Western Art', MIT Press:
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=10247 |
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Category : Representations
| Posted By : Sarah | Comments[57] | Trackbacks [0] |
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| 12 Mar 2008 04:10:26 am |
| Nostalgic Technology |
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Category : Representations
| Posted By : Sarah | Comments[36] | Trackbacks [0] |
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| 25 Feb 2008 04:28:08 pm |
| Living on Main Street |
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A week or two ago I accessed the Irish Times archive and compiled the series of articles written by Emer McNamara, about her move from Dublin to Manorhamilton in the late nineties (every second Thursday September 1999 – June 2000).
This series was called ‘Living on Main Street’ and contain detailed descriptions that move from observations about people and life in the town (names included), to the author’s personal life, to the sense of the broader social changes happening in the country as a whole, and the northwest in particular. They make interesting, if slightly uncomfortable reading – I can identify with her migration from the east and its economic pull, but not her decision to make such a very public diary. It feels raw to me, and I can only wonder at the social and emotional conflicts that must have played out within the micropolitics of the town.
This idea of the ‘outside observer’ representing small town life to a cultured (or otherwise knowledgeable) audience elsewhere is as relevant to artists as it is to journalists, writers, anthropologists and others (see for example Hal Foster’s ‘The Artist as Ethnographer’ and Alex Coles, ‘Site-Specificity, the Ethnographic Turn’). She mentions this herself, describing a sense of caution/ suspicion at some of the things she hears: ‘Now, I know enough about American anthropologists in the Aran Islands, who've been taken for folklore rides…’ (Thursday, October 14, 1999).
Some extracts:
Economic realities began to change my perceptions. And the return here after my one-and-a-half years in Dublin was clinched by my new partner, Tony, when he embraced the move with enthusiasm… I bought the house for £47,000… The garden is 130 feet long, and it comes with a small mews attached, referred to in these parts as "d'outhouse". I'm going to renovate it as an apartment, to supplement my income and take advantage of the recently introduced tax incentives. I don't let the fact that I know zero about gardening or tourism put me off. And, anyway, the move here is not so much a choice as a necessity…. Let's put it this way, I don't expect to be decked out in Birkenstocks and track-suits anytime soon.
Thursday, September 16, 1999
"I found your account of the closure of Agnes's shop very moving," one man wrote to me, "but surely you could find some positive stories from a fine town like Manorhamilton?" I'm afraid that life here just does not break down that simply, and as much as I could try to paint a quaint picture of a rural retreat, that is not the truth. Nor can I package that truth to make quaint lifestyle reading for people living in the city… When people ask what my column is about I usually say "urban chick moves to rural town" because I thought that was the easiest way to get the point across. I realise now that's a lie, because I'm only trying to retain my street cred. I might as well just say: "But I'm not a culchie you know" and be done with it.
Thursday, November 11, 1999
"Here comes trouble," I heard one woman say to another when shopping in Spar the other day. Even my bank manager was a little sceptical when I suggested that the column would ultimately be good for the town. "Don't give me that," he said. "Don't be trying to convince me that you are working hard on behalf of the people of Manorhamilton." "Yeah, but they won't send a lynching party out, will they?" I asked feeling slightly ridiculous. "Not yet anyway," he replied rather cryptically.
Thursday, November 25, 1999
Aside from the wordcount, for copyright reasons I cannot post the articles here. Anyone who is interested in reading them can contact me – if anything the comparison with the recent past forms an interesting portrait of Manorhamilton. |
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Category : Representations
| Posted By : Sarah | Comments[137] | Trackbacks [0] |
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| 21 Jan 2008 11:59:04 am |
| Acres Lake, Drumshanbo |
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Acres Lake, Drumshanbo. Photo by John Keaney, Carrick-on-Shannon. (Still for sale)
reverse inscription:
DRUMSHANBO, holiday town in the heart of Leitrim, boating, tennis, fishing, swimming, traditional music nights, hores-riding, Maguires Rent-a-Cottage, walks and mountain climbing. |
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Category : Representations
| Posted By : Sarah | Comments[43] | Trackbacks [0] |
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| 12 Jan 2008 06:15:34 pm |
| Colour (John Hinde) |
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County Leitrim postcard, published by John Hinde, date unknown, still sold. |
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Category : Representations
| Posted By : Sarah | Comments[22] | Trackbacks [0] |
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