Featured image: Sir John Lavery (1856-1941), St Patrick’s Purgatory, 1930. Collection & image © Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin.
A John Lavery painting of Station Island, Lough Derg has gone on display at the National Gallery of Ireland.
The Lavery. On Location exhibition is the highlight of the National Gallery of Ireland’s autumn-winter programme and runs until 14 January 2024.
As the first major monographic exhibition devoted to this modern Irish master in three decades, this new must-see show includes more than 70 paintings from public and private collections, featuring a number of never-before-seen works, and has been made possible with the support of Arthur Cox.
One such work, St. Patrick’s Purgatory, 1930, depicts a crowd of people having made the pilgrimage to Station Island, Lough Derg, believed to have been the point at which St. Patrick was shown the entrance to Purgatory.
In relation to the work, the place and the people, Lavery wrote in a letter to his friend Thomas Bodkin, “my picture, I fear, will look like a crowded summer resort, making Purgatory a thing to long for.”
John Lavery’s work is a firm favourite globally, with particularly passionate audiences in Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland, where this show will visit.
Born in Belfast in 1856, John Lavery studied art in Glasgow, London and Paris. By the early 1880s he had established himself as an internationally renowned painter. He was the only Irishman to receive the Freedom of both Dublin and Belfast in the inter-war period.
Head Curator at the National Gallery of Ireland and co-curator of the exhibition, Dr Brendan Rooney commented: This exhibition provides a wonderful opportunity to showcase the remarkable breadth of Lavery’s subject. Well-travelled, curious and social, he felt compelled to record both the locations he visited and the people with whom he experienced those places. The works he produced on his travels, from France and Morocco to the United States, are alive with colour and movement.”
Lavery. On Location is proudly supported by Arthur Cox, Exhibition Partner. The Gallery would like to thank the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media for their ongoing support. Find out more at www.nationalgallery.ie.
