PAINTING AND SKETCHING
WICKLOW ARTISTS TO EXHIBIT IN HISTORIC DUBLIN PAINTING & SKETCHING CLUB EXHIBITION
YANNY PETTERS from Enniskerry and Brenda Malley from Charlesland in Greystones are among the artist to show this year at the national group art show held by the Dublin Painting & Sketching Club.
The show is moving back to its original location, Dublin City Centre - overlooking the River Liffey.
This 140th exhibition opened on Monday, April 16, and will remain open until Sunday, April 29, at Custom House Quarter.
For the past 19 years, the exhibition was held in Dun Laoghaire at the Concourse Gallery, Dun Laoghaire County Hall. The Club’s president Aidan Hickey said that ‘Dun Laoghaire was an excellent venue but, for this 140th Annual Exhibition, the Club has decided it’s time to come home. Our roots are beside the Liffey. Settled there again, we can reflect on the life and energy of the city.’
This 2018 exhibition incorporates a special theme this year, ‘ The River Liffey’, to celebrate its return to its original location, with member artists creating some paintings to reflect the environs.
Some of the works feature the source of that famous river, in County Wicklow.
One of the country’s largest national art exhibitions, the Dublin Painting & Sketching Club exhibition offers a broad choice of paintings to suit modernist and traditional tastes. Around 170 works are being shown by about 100 well-known contemporary artists, some 70 Club members and additional invited artists, from Dublin and other counties around Ireland.
Combined with the River Liffey themed paintings will be landscapes, still life, portraiture, streetscapes, floral, animal and life studies, among other subjects. These works also encompass all media and styles within the broad genre of representational art, from the figurative to the contemporary. Works in oil, watercolour, pastels and ink, drawings, lithographs and prints will be on show, starting at around €250 (for a small print or drawing) and going up to €4,000, with some 60% ranging between €750 and €1,000.
Paintings are also being shown by non-members, chosen through an open submission selection process. Successfully introduced two years ago, the invited painters and print-makers bring fresh talent that enriches and diversifies the exhibition. Around 20 artists, selected out of a number of submissions, will be included with one work each this year.
‘Recently, the arrival of younger painters has revitalised the club,’ said Aidan. ‘Many of these are art school graduates who, in defiance of establishment values, have learned to paint. They are fine representatives of the revival of expressive painting that is changing the world of art. The ancient idea of painting as visible poetry is also returning – it will be what we look forward to seeing in years to come.’
The club was founded in October, 1874, by a group of artists who included Alfred Grey RHA, Alexander Williams
RHA and author Bram Stoker on Westland Row, in view of the Stack A Warehouse on the north side of the Liffey, now restored as the CHQ.
The exhibition includes guided tours open to the public, some highlighting the River Liffey theme. Sponsored by Whyte’s Auctioneers, it is open to the public admission free from 10am to 5pm daily. The catalogue will be available online, through the club’s website atdublinpaintingandsketchingclub.ie.