As President Michael D. Higgins leads the tributes to the late Professor Anne Crookshank her funeral will take place on this Saturday afternoon in her adopted town of Ramelton.
She resided at Bridge Street overlooking the Lennon estuary and was a renowned author, art historian and Fellow of Trinity College Dublin. She was also the former keeper of painting at the Ulster Museum.
After graduating from Trinity, she studied the History of Art at the Courtaulds Institute in London.
Leading the tributes to her memory, President Michael D. Higgins said: “Anne Crookshank will be remembered not just for her unrivalled knowledge of Irish paintings and her love for Irish heritage, but also for her tremendous generosity of spirit, her discipline and the quiet integrity that inspired the deep friendships of which all who knew her have spoken. Her journey through life was both extraordinary and marvellous and she leaves a legacy of great joy and wisdom as well as of great love.’
A native of Whiteabbbey in County Antrim, she came to reside in Ramelton over thirty years ago and was one of the most highly respected members of the local community.
She was the former owner of Convoy House which she inherited from Mae Boyton but after a brief period she sold the property in favour of taking up residence overlooking the Swilly estuary in Ramelton where she spent so much of her time in later years.
President Higgins added: “Throughout her life and career, Anne Crookshank studied, celebrated and catalogued Irish art and paintings with an expertise, passion and energy that inspired so many initiatives in support of Irish heritage. Be it as Emeritus Professor of History of Art or Curator of Art at the Ulster Museum, she brought her expertise to bear in initiatives as diverse as the Irish Georgian Society, the restoration of Castletown House and the setting up of the Irish Museum of Modern Art, as well as many others.”
M/s Crookshank was the founder of the Department of the History of Art and Architecture and the facility in Trinity Colllege is to be named in her honour. As Professor Emeritus she has been a major figure in the establishment of Irish art history.
Together with Dr Desmond Fitzgerald, the 29th Knight of Glin, she collected together reproduction images of tens of thousands of paintings by more than a thousand Irish artists dating primarily from the seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries.
These photographic images have been stored in files, alphabetically by artist’s name, and collectively have been instrumental in helping to piece together a framework of the fragmented history of Irish visual imagery.
The images have provided the basis for seminal texts by Prof Crookshank and the Knight, including Ireland’s Painters, 1600-1940 (2002) and The Watercolours of Ireland (1994).
The files of images are available for consultation by researchers visiting TRIARC, and a significant proportion of the images have been scanned and catalogued for consultation online on the Trinity Access to Research Area image database.
She passed away in Áras Uí Dhomhnaill Nursing Home, Milford on October 18th in her 90th year. She is mourned by her sister Helen Haughton and good friend Deborah Brown, and many relatives and friends.
Her funeral Service is at 1.00 pm on this Saturday (October 29th) at Saint Paul’s Church, Ramelton with burial afterwards in the Bank cemetery.
A Memorial Service in Trinity Chapel, Dublin is to be arranged.
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