Time/Date -
Friday 26 March - Tuesday 26 October
A spectacular exhibition of Irish and international art covering four centuries is to go on display at the transformed Ulster Museum from late March.
The exhibition, featuring more than 170 works, will follow the highly-successful Sean Scully retrospective which headlined the museum’s re-opening after major refurbishment. In the first three months of operation the Ulster Museum was the busiest museum or gallery anywhere in Ireland.
One of the featured collections on display is the art work 'Under the Cherry Tree' (1884) by Sir John Lavery 1856-1941 © By courtesy of Felix Rosenstiel’s Widow & Son Ltd., on behalf of the Estate of Sir John Lavery 2010 (pictured left click image to enlarge).
Below you can see Lynn Stinson, Conservator at National Museums Northern Ireland discussing the de-installation of the Sean Scully exhibition with Scully studio representative Frank Hutter, in preparation for a new exhibition coming to the Ulster Museum next month (click image to enlarge).
The new show ‘Visions – Spectacular Art from the Ulster Museum’ will feature major Irish artists of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries including Nathaniel Hone, Roderic O’Conor, Walter Osbourne, Sir John Lavery, Jack B Yeats, Paul Henry, Gerard Dillon, Louis Le Brocquy, Robert Ballagh and Hughie O’Donoghue. One of the museum’s newest acquisitions, Ghost Story by Turner Prize Finalist Willie Doherty, will be on display for the first time as part of an exhibition exploring contemporary Irish art.
The British and international highlights include work by JMW Turner, LS Lowry, Francis Bacon, Jean Dubuffet, Karel Appel, Bridget Riley, Gilbert & George, Graham Sutherland and Patrick Caulfield.
A new publication by the Ulster Museum’s Curators of Fine Art, Dr Eileen Black and Anne Stewart, detailing 100 of the best Irish works of art will be launched alongside the exhibition.
Tim Cooke, Director of National Museums Northern Ireland, says: “This new exhibition will build upon the success of the Sean Scully retrospective in re-establishing the Ulster Museum and Belfast as a venue for exceptional art exhibitions.”
He added: “The quality and range of paintings will thrill visitors. The transformed museum offers an excellent setting for so many superb works.”
Kim Mawhinney, Head of Art at National Museums Northern Ireland, says the new “Visions” exhibition will be on display until autumn 2010.
She added: “It will be accompanied by a series of events with full information available in the what's on pages of our website and of course entrance to the Ulster Museum is free.”
Additional information
The themes included in ‘Visions – Spectacular Art from the Ulster Museum’ are:
- Renaissance to Romanticism, Old Master Paintings
The museum’s Old Master collection has been built up since 1893 and comprises works by Flemish, Dutch, Italian and British painters of the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries. This selection includes one of the most significant donations in the history of the museum: J.M.W. Turner’s Dawn of Christianity (Flight into Egypt), given in 1913.
- A New Order, Twentieth Century Irish Art
Highlights of the twentieth century Irish art collection arranged to illustrate three themes: Figure, Place and Imagination. During the closure of the Ulster Museum new acquisitions have entered the art collection, most notably two major works by Derry artist Willie Doherty, Apparatus, a series of 40 photographs of Belfast, and Ghost Story, a powerful video installation that was first shown at the Venice Biennale in 2007.
- Faces and Places, Irish Art 1690s-1880s
This exhibition illustrates the increasing sophistication of portraiture in Ireland from the 1690s and the emergence of landscape painting from the 1720s. Included are major portrait painters like James Latham and Nathaniel Hone and landscapists such as George Barret and Sir John Lavery, whose Under the Cherry Tree is one of the most important works in the collection.
This exhibition shows the highest quality drawings and watercolours of the Ulster Museum's permanent collection. On display is a comprehensive array of Irish, British and Continental works on paper from the seventeenth century to the present day, including important artists such as John Henry Fuseli, Andrew Nicholl, Dr James Moore, Richard Dunscombe Parker and Kenneth Shoesmith.
- Power to Shock, Twentieth Century British Art
Highlights of the twentieth century British art collection arranged to illustrate three themes: Intimacy, Enclosure and Abstraction. The display will give an overview of British art from Sickert to the work of contemporary artist Matt Collinshaw and will feature Head II by Francis Bacon, recently returned from major exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Prado in Madrid and the Tate in London.
- After The Bomb, Post-War International Art
A display devoted to the highlights of the International art collection at the Ulster Museum. The most important works date from the 1950s and 1960s and include examples by American and European painters most notably: Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Karel Appel and Jean Dubuffet.
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