When in Dublin, it’s ever so tempting to do as many Dubliners — and tourists — do and go on a big pub crawl. But if you’d prefer casting your gaze over great art and design instead of pints of Guinness, there’s a raft of galleries to choose from. And as a bonus, this quintet won’t cost you a cent to visit — unless you decide to make the suggested donation.
Talents from Ireland and abroad, past and present, are showcased behind the turquoise front door of this former lord’s mansion overlooking Parnell Square North. The Hugh Lane in question was born in County Cork, but grew up in England, becoming an art dealer and collector in London, before returning home to launch Dublin’s first space dedicated to modern and contemporary art. Lane died, aged 39, on board RMS Lusitania — sunk by a German U-boat off the Cork coast in 1915 — but his legacy endures at a gallery that has both temporary exhibitions and a superb permanent collection.
Browse Impressionist works by Edouard Manet, Claude Monet and Edgar Degas, pieces by Irish female abstract artists Mainie Jellett, May Guinness and Mary Swanzy, stained glass by Henry Clarke and works by Nathaniel Hone, whom Lane considered Ireland’s greatest landscape painter. The gallery also contains the chaotic reconstructed studio of the late Dublin-born painter Francis Bacon. Journalism for the curious Australian across politics, business, culture and opinion.
Another venue with an arresting mix of foreign and Irish art i.
