Irish Arts Review

Artists' Century: Irish Self-Portraits and Selected Works, 1900-2000 by Paula MurphyReview by: Ann CreminIrish Arts Review Yearbook, Vol. 17 (2001), p. 180Published by: Irish Arts ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20493197 .

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Book Reviews

Dream Collection', which proves most useful with well researched pointers on the pros and cons of buying art at auction

which really is quite a simple procedure but one by which the uninitiated feel daunted. I am not quite sure what Maggie

Britton's article entitled 'A Romance of Irish Art' is doing in this volume having also been seen, more appropriately, in the Irish Antique Dealers Association Yearbook last year but the illustrations are good.

The editor and compiler of the guide, Roberta Reeners, also provides an introduc tion in which she attempts to explain the

phenomenon of the rise in the Irish art mar

ket and identifies some of the main movers. This guide does most of what it sets out

to do and in an attractive fashion, despite the fact that the typesetter was unable to

locate the caps key on their keyboard. I do

not expect to see the next edition for a

few years when a reasonable bank of prices will have been built up again. I, for one,

will not be holding my breath.

JAMES O'HALLORAN is a Director of the James Adam

Salerooms.

Artists' Century: Irish Self-Portraits and Selected Works, 1900-2000 ..................................................................................................................................................................

BY PAULA MURPHY ..................................................................................................................................................................

Gandon Editions 1999 p/b

228 pp. 210 col ills 0946846-448 ..................................................................................................................................................................

Ann Cremin

This nicely-produced volume from the indefatigable Gandon Press reflects on one

hundred years of Irish artists by means of

one self-portrait and one representative work.

The listing is by no means exhaustive

since its premise meant that self-portraits had to be available in the first place. It

was published on the occasion of a millen

nium exhibition organised jointly by the RHA, the Ormeau Baths Gallery and the

National Self-Portrait Collection of Ireland. It is a handsome volume, with the

works speaking for themselves on double pages: the self-portrait facing an 'impor tant' work. The catalogue notes were

compiled by Paula Murphy of UCD and

she has written an informative text,

retracing the history of Irish painting over

SELF-PORTRAIT BY JOHN LUKE: From Artists' Century: Irish Self-Portraits and Selected Works, 1900-2000 by Paula Murphy. Called The Tipster, this self-portrait

from the Ulster Museum was exhibited alongside the artist's The Road to the West from the same collection.

the past century. She situates the historic context leading to the muted develop

ment of the visual arts in Ireland before

the Second World War and the recent

freedom, in every sense, experienced by the current generation of artists, whether they are working in Ireland or abroad, such as Richard Gorman or Kathy

Prendergast, to mention just two of the leading lights.

It is quite amusing to see the way in

which the artists view themselves, as well as the works chosen to represent them.

Robert Ballagh gives us the full frontal treatment in Upstairs, 3, as well as show

ing a more classical self-portrait. Other artists are more coy about their own images as Camille Souter demonstrates with her 'image' as a fish in Achill, alongside an

earlier painting, Slaughtered Cow, Ten Minutes Dead (premonitions of Damien Hirst?). I enjoyed the Pretty Fierce Self-por trait by Norah MacGuinness which is

indeed a very apt description. Alice Maher is more allusive with her Self-Portrait: Four

Views (of hair), braided or otherwise, whereas Eilis O'Connell has gone to the

other extreme with her startling Life-Mask. ANN CREMIN is an international art critic based in Paris.

Buildings of County Armagh ..................................................................................................................................................................

BY C E B BRETr WITH PHOTOGRAPHY BY

MICHAEL O'CONNELL ..................................................................................................................................................................

Ulster Archaeological Heritage Society 1999 h/b ?28

286 pp. 24 col 236 b/w ills 0-900457-54-6 ..................................................................................................................................................................

Jeremy Williams

Before Sir Charles Brett published his Buildings of County Antrim in 1996, it was

suggested that he should defer to Alistair Rowan and his co-authors and wait until

the completion of their Buildings of Ireland. He replied that this would entail a ban of

many years on writing on Irish architec

ture and went ahead. Four years later,

with no further Buildings of Ireland volume on Ulster in sight, he has brought out a

companion volume, Buildings of County Armagh, written with such vigour over two years that we may all hope to see the

further four counties so magisterially sur

veyed and so observantly photographed by Michael O'Connell

The first entry is the Neolithic tomb of

Clontygora, 'a surprisingly attractive and

moving place, considering how boring some cairns can be.' The second last entry

on the Edward Saunderson memorial ends

thus: 'and yet a smile is raised by the

sweep and clarity with which the sculptor

represents frock-coat, watch-chain, whiskers and waist-coat buttons, all the

more so when the statue is seasonably

decorated with a long, old-fashioned, Orange sash, the bottom attached to a

trouser-leg with string.' Indeed the text is

peppered with personal opinions and there

is significantly more than architecture being assessed within these pages but

without recourse to dry English platitudes or honeyed southern Irish hypocrisy -

note, for example, his brief essay on

thatched cottages. While the city of Armagh has been well

studied, south Armagh has been totally unknown until now. The elegance of the

neo-Classical villas of Beech Hill, that I

have glimpsed from the road, and Acton,

that I have glimpsed from the train,

receive their due for the first time. Acton,

with its elliptical dining room projecting into the valley below, is extraordinarily

sophisticated. Sir Charles resists stylistic attributions but it is difficult to believe that

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IRISH ARTS REVIEW

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