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We are learning many lessons from the current coronavirus crisis, and hopefully one of these is an appreciation for the beauty that exists on our doorsteps. Sadly, we are prohibited from attending our galleries, but we can access some of the treasures they house online.
This week I am suggesting a visit to the Crawford Art Gallery in Cork which, 14 years ago, was designated a National Cultural Institution. Last year, it had more than 265,000 visitors, and one of its great attractions is the range of visual arts on display, both historic and contemporary.
In 1979 the school moved to another site, with the original building being used as a gallery and museum
The gallery is in what used to be the Cork Customs House. Built in 1724, it became home to the Royal Cork Institution (RCI) more than a century later, and the RCI was involved in opening the Cork School of Design there in 1850.
Three decades later the school was extended thanks to patronage from members of the Crawford family, local brewers of note, and was renamed the Crawford School of Art in 1885. In 1979 the school moved to another site, with the original building being used as a gallery and museum.
The gallery is world-renowned for one of its earliest acquisitions, casts of classical Greek and Roman statues by Antonio Canova.
The overall collection extends to more than 4,000 works
These were brought to Cork from the Vatican in 1818. The RCI acquired these works from the Society of Fine Arts in Cork, and they had been given the casts by the then Prince Regent, later King George IV. He, in turn, had received them from Pope Pius VII, who had commissioned Canova.
The overall collection extends to more than 4,000 works, and other items include works by sculptors such as John Hogan and Eilis O’Connell, stained-glass artists like Harry Clarke and Evie Hone, painters such as William Orpen, Jack B Yeats and Nano Reid, as well as photographer Bob Carlos Clarke.
you are drawn by the colours and the expressions on the faces of the subjects
There are currently three online exhibitions running, one for just a few more days, while online you can search the gallery collection. In Transit features artists George Awde (US/Lebanon), Daniel Castro Garcia (Britain), Gohar Dashti (Iran), Tanya Habjouqa (Jordan), and Stefanie Zofia Schulz (Germany) in an exhibition of photography and filmmaking that focuses on the tentative, limbo-like experience of living between different cultures.
While many of the images show the hardship and deprivation endured by many of those featured, you are drawn by the colours and the expressions on the faces of the subjects. They are people trapped in time and place, and the images reflect the boredom, sadness, fear and apathy of these displaced people. This exhibition ends on 5 May.
Also showing are the Zurich Portrait Prize and the Young Portrait Prize winners for 2019. The latter will appeal to children from the age of three and up to teenagers, while the former presents work that depicts some of the best-known Irish women and men, and others who are not known beyond a small circle. The selection on show includes the winner, a highly contemporary piece of photography by Enda Bowe, titled Cybil McCaddy with daughter Lulu.
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