National Gallery of Ireland displays work of artist who spent his final months in Kilkenny

The highlight of the National Gallery of Ireland’s autumn-winter programme is Lavery. On Location, which runs until 14 January, 2024.  

This is the first major monographic exhibition devoted to this modern Irish master in three decades. This new must-visit exhibition includes more than 70 paintings from public and private collections, features a number of never-before-seen works, and has been made possible with the support of Arthur Cox.

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Born in Belfast in 1856, John Lavery studied art in Glasgow, London and Paris. By the early 1880s he had established himself as an internationally renowned painter. He was the only Irishman to receive the Freedom of both Dublin and Belfast in the inter-war period.

Choosing to spend his remaining months in the company of his step-daughter Alice and her husband, John Lavery passed away in Rossenarra House, Kilmoganny, Co. Kilkenny in January 1941.

Following his death, signifying the artist’s connection with the county, Alice donated three of his portraits to Rothe House, Parliament Street Gardens, where they remain on display today. 

John Lavery’s work is a firm favourite globally, with particularly passionate audiences in Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland, where this show will visit.

The popular description of Lavery as a portrait painter, however, reflects only one dimension of his work.

Throughout his long career, most of Lavery’s solo exhibitions featured works related to his travels across Europe, North Africa and even North America.

He was drawn to paint the people and scenery around him wherever he went. Whether he was abroad for business or leisure, Lavery never travelled without his painting kit – sometimes a small ‘pochade’ box, or on another occasions, a larger collapsible easel designed specifically for 25 x 30-inch canvases. 

Paintings such as the Bridge at Grez (1883), The Greyhound (Sir Reginald Lister and Eileen Lavery; The Last British Minister, the Drawing Room, British Legation, Tangier) from 1910, and Michael Collins (Love of Ireland) became essential images of their times.

While not exclusively devoted to the notion of Lavery as artist-traveller, the exhibition focuses on some of the key locations depicted in Lavery’s art, from Scotland to Palm Springs, Spain to Switzerland.

Highlights include the works he produced at Grez-sur Loing – an historic village popular with American, Irish, British, Scandinavian and Japanese artists– and Tangier, a place that had attracted painters including Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863) and Henri Matisse (1869-1954).

In Grez, Lavery enjoyed what he referred to as his ‘happiest days in France’, while Tangier gave him many opportunities to reassess the conventional tropes of Orientalism. A Garden in France (1898), recently acquired by the National Gallery of Ireland, will be a highlight of the show. 

The exhibition additionally includes on-the-spot studies of places and people he made in Switzerland, Spain, Ireland and Italy, while cities from Glasgow to London, Venice to Cannes and New York are also represented.  

Such was the richness and variety of Lavery’s work that Winston Churchill concluded that his artistic mentor, was a ‘plein-airiste if ever there was one’.

Lavery. On Location / Beit Wing, National Gallery of Ireland / 7 October 2023 - 14 January 2024 / Curators: Professor Kenneth McConkey & Dr Brendan Rooney / Tickets from €5