Born in Dublin 1939 he began his artistic career in Belfast in the 1950s as an apprentice to the linen designer John Shaw Brown. After three years there he returned to the capital and worked as a commercial artist for an advertising company.  An avid traveler Graham has been on numerous expedit...

Albert Irvin was a prolific British artist, best known for his exuberant paintings, watercolours, screenprints and gouaches. He was born in London and continued to live and work there throughout his life. His art focuses on capturing and exploring the experience of being in the world. The first maj...

Alethea Garstin was born in Penzance, Cornwall in 1894. She began to paint at the age of 16 and although she never received any formal training, she was predominately taught by her father, the acclaimed painter Norman Garstin, who also taught artists such as Harold Harvey. In 1912, at the tender ag...

Little information exists in relation to this painter, which is surprising when one notes the quantity of work which he exhibited at the RHA during his career. With the exception of four random years during the sixty year period in which he worked, (1864-1934), Grey showed an average of eight painti...

Born in Dublin, Alice Hanratty studied at the National College of Art and Design and at the Hornsey College of Art in London. Best known for her printmaking skills, she has held solo shows in Dublin, Bangor and in Nairobi, Kenya. Although familiar with many printing techniques, etching is Hanratty's...

Aloysius O’Kelly was born in Dublin but moved to London at a young age. In 1874 he became one of the first Irish artists to study at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he received his training from Orientalist painter Jean-Léon Gérome and Léon Bonnall. O’Kelly was also one of the initi...

Andrew Nicholl was born in Belfast and worked as an apprentice to a printer, but showed an interest in painting and drawing from early on. After spending some time in London he returned to Ireland to exhibit at the RHA, and was elected a full member of the Academy in 1860. He moved between Belfast, ...

Anne Hendrick graduated with a joint honours degree in Fine Art Painting and History of Art in 2006 from NCAD. Over the past few years she has taken part in numerous solo and group shows in Ireland. She works primarily in the medium of painting and is currently also working with video and installati...

Born in Dublin, Anne Yeats entered the RHA schools at the age of 13 where she studied for three years. She became a set designer at the Abbey Theatre (1936-40) and began painting full time in 1941. She joined the organizing committee of the IELA in 1947 becoming Secretary for a number of years. Toda...

Madden was born in Chile. Her father was Irish, her mother Anglo-Chilean, and they moved to England when she was about four. Ireland became important as she visited her fathers relations in Co. Clare with him, discovering and spending time in the Burren, thereafter a landscape of central imaginative...

An animal, flower and landscape painter, Jury was born in Antrim in 1907. She studied at Belfast School of Art and in England, France and Switzerland. She exhibited with the Belfast Art Society from 1926 1929, the Ulster Academy of Arts between 1931 and 1949, and the RUA from 1950 to 1979....

Following his studies at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin born Anthony O’Carroll moved to Scandinavia to study at the Academy of Fine Art in Helsinki and the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Art in Stockholm. From the mid 1960s on, O’Carroll had solo shows in Dublin at the Molesworth ...

Born in Denmark in 1926, Vodder developed his skills learning from his close friend and business partner, Finn Juhl.  Vodder is best known for his furniture designs, which tended to be simple pieces composed of natural materials such as rosewood or teak, often inspired by the natural forms and occ...

Arthur Armstrong was a landscape and still life painter. Born on 12 January 1924 at Carrickfergus, Co. Antrim, Arthur Charlton Armstrong was the son of a house painter, Charlton Armstrong, and remembered his father painting pictures with paint remnants from various jobs. With his family, Armstrong ...

Landscape painter, designer, illustrator and photographer, Arthur Campbell spent his first nine years in Dublin and Arklow, Co.Wicklow. Brother to George and son to Gretta Bowen, Arthur went to night classes at Belfast College of Art. In 1925-45 he was a printing and advertisement designer with W. &...

Born in 1942 in London, Arthur Maderson studied fine Art from 1959 to 1963 at Camberwell school of Art, South London, where in 1963 he won the Anna Berry Award in open competition with graduates from all the leading Art Schools in England. In 1987 Arthur moved from somerset to a totally isolated 17...

Arthur Twells was born in Nottingham in 1921. He was granted a scholarship to Nottingham College of Art at the age of 11 which he left to work in textile design, before joining the Navy. It was during his service that he travelled to Derry in Ireland, a place he would later settle with his wife. Tw...

Barbara Warren studied at NCAD in Dublin where she was later to teach for 10 years and with André Lhote in Paris. She was also influenced and encouraged by her friend and fellow painter Elizabeth Rivers . She exhibited regularly at the Dublin Painters’ Society where she held her first one person ...

Born in Cheshire, England, Barrie Cooke came to Ireland in 1954 and immediately fell in love with the landscape. He was interested in the immediate and compelling accurate accounts of the natural world, depicting how close in nature life is to death. Death, change and decay are built into the natura...

Barry Castle studied at the National College of Art in her native Dublin, where her tutors included Seán Keating, Maurice MacGonigal and John Kelly. She exhibited with the Solomon Gallery in Dublin, and a major retrospective was held by the RHA in 1998. Daughter of novelist and playwright Maura Lav...

Basil Blackshaw was born in Co. Antrim but brought up in Co. Down, and studied at Belfast College of Art, where he received a scholarship that enabled him to travel to Paris for further study in 1951. His upbringing brought him close one of his favoured subjects – loose yet evocative equine scenes...

Although born in England, Basil Rákóczi’s mother was from Co. Cork. He studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumiére in Paris and privately under Ossip Zadkine. In 1933 Rákoczi founded the Society for Creative Psychology with his friend Kenneth Hall and exhibited paintings under the name of ...

Beatrice Glenavy was born in Dublin and began her studies at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art along with her sister Dorothy under sculptor John Hughes. She won the Queen’s Prize for drawing (1900) and the Taylor Art Scholarship (1901) which enabled her to travel to Paris for further studies. ...

Born in Dublin, Bernadette Madden was a student at the National College of Art and Design and was awarded the William J Macauley Fellowship in Painting by the Arts Council in 1976. She is well known for her work with Batik and also makes screenprints on paper. She has exhibited extensively across I...

Born in 1967, Blaise Smith studied visual art at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin. He has had numerous solo exhibitions at The Molesworth Gallery, as well at The Hunt Museum in Limerick and Visual in Carlow. He has been selected three times for the BP Portrait Exhibition at The Natio...

Long associated with the St. Ives School of painters, O’Casey began his studies at the Anglo-French Art Centre in London in 1949 and Saint Martin’s School of Art in 1953 before completing an apprenticeship under Denis Mitchell and Barbara Hepworth. He has lived and worked in Cornwall since the 1...

Brett McEntagart was born in Dublin and studied Art at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire and Colorado University, USA, where he was awarded a Masters of Fine Art. In 1977 he was elected an associate of the Royal Hibernian Academy leading to full membership in 1980. Serving as secretary of the Academy...

Born in 1943, Brian Ballard studied in his home town at Belfast College of Art and went on to further studies at Liverpool College of Art. Best known for his modern treatment of the traditional genres of the still life, the nude and the landscape, and his distinctive use of bold yet evocative colour...

Brian Palm was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1957. He attended the National College of Art and Design, Dublin, graduating with honours in 1981. Palm remained in Ireland and has regularly shown his work in numerous solo and group exhibitions including the Royal Hibernian Academy's Annual Exhibitio...

Brian Bourke was born in 1936 in Dublin and studied at the National College of Art and Design and later at Saint Martin's School of Art in London. He held his first one-man show in Dublin in 1964. The following year he won an Arts Council prize for portraiture, and represented Ireland in both the B...

In his Edinburgh studio, Scottish abstract painter Callum Innes, winner of the NatWest Art Prize and the Jerwood Painting Prize, makes paintings that have been exhibited throughout the world, in Britain, Ireland, the US, New Zealand, Iceland, Asia. ‘I have to reinvent myself every morning. I have ...

Born Betty Pamela Holmes in Northhampton in 1929, Camille Souter came to Ireland when she was just one year old, and later excelled at art at school. During her studies as a trainee nurse in Guys Hospital, London she contracted tuberculosis. It was this illness which led to her being called Camille....

Carlo de Carli was an Italian designer, architect, essayist, and academic. Born in Milan in 1919, he graduated from Politecnico di Milano in 1934 and later worked at the studio of Gio Ponti before opening a studio with Renato Angeli.  In 1940, he began his collaboration with the Triennale di ...

Carol Graham studied in her hometown of Belfast at the College of Art and Design. Her painting The Striped Skirt appeared at an exhibition at the Ulster Museum and immediately caught the public’s attention. Since then she has exhibited at the Arts Council of Northern Ireland Gallery and had numero...

Caroline Scally was born in Dun Laoghaire and studied at the Metropolitan School of Art with Sean Keating and James Sinton Sleator under William Orpen. Awarded the Taylor Art Scholarship in 1911 she headed for Paris and then on to Rome. She held her first one-woman show at The Dublin Painters Galler...

Born in Lurgan in 1930, Maguire graduated from the Queen's University Belfast in 1951. He then took an English teaching post at Lurgan College. He became a member of the Royal Ulster Academy in 1974, winning both the Silver Medal (1964, 1967) and the Gold Medal there (1993). In 1971 he began exhibit...

Born in India, Salkeld entered the Metropolitan School of Art at the age of fifteen. In 1921 he went to Kassel, Germany and studied art under Ewald Dulberg. In 1924 he returned to Dublin and held his first solo show at the Dublin Painters’ Gallery. He also exhibited in the New Irish Salon Exh...

Born in Portadown, Co. Armagh, Charles Lamb initially studied life drawing at night at the Belfast School of Art before winning a scholarship to study full time at the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin in 1917. In 1921 Lamb visited Carraroe in Connemara for the first time. Charles Lamb, like He...

Charles Brady was born in Manhattan, New York  and studied art at the Art Students League 1948-1951. In 1955 he had his first solo exhibition in the Urban Gallery. During this time he met regularly with other New York artists at Cedar Street Tavern, including Franz Kline and painters like Willem d...

Charles MacIver Grierson was born in Queenstown, now Cobh, Co. Cork, in December 1864. His father was the manager of the Cunard Steamship Company, Queenstown. He studied at the Crawford School of Art and for a time went on to the Westminister School of Art. The main venue for his output was the Roy...

Born Cherith Boyd in Worcester in 1928, McKinstry came to Ulster as a child and during the war years and was evacuated with her school to Co. Tyrone. Having interrupted initial studies in sculpture at the Belfast College of Art, she returned there from 1950 to 1953 to study painting under Romeo To...

Born in Dublin Campbell studied art at the Metropolitan School of Art under Patrick Tuohy along with his brother Laurence who became a sculptor. He exhibited over 70 works at the RHA and, as well as painting, also did stained glass and worked for a while at the Harry Clarke Stained Glass Studi...

Born in Dublin in 1947, Ciarán Lennon studied at the National College of Art & Design from 1963 to 1967. He has been awarded the Pollock Krasner Foundation Award twice in 1991 and in 1997. He is a member of Aosdána and in 1996 he was chosen to represent Ireland at the São Paulo Biennial in Br...

Claire Kerr was born in North Tyneside in 1968 and studied at Magdalene College, Oxford, Wimbledon School of Art and Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology. She lives and works in Dublin. She has been awarded numerous prizes including in 2013 Culture Ireland; 2012 Golden Fleece Awar...

Belfast artist Colin Middleton studied at the Belfast College of Art where he won the RDS Taylor Scholarship in 1932, and went on to take night classes at the Belfast Royal Academy while working for the family’s damask business. He began exhibiting at the RHA in 1938, and was elected a full member...

Colin Martin was born in Dublin in 1973. He graduated from DIT in Fine Art- Painting in 1994 and completed a post-graduate year in printmaking in 2005. He completed an MFA at the National College of Art and Design in 2010. He lives and works in Dublin. In 2008 he was elected an associate member of...

Born in Lincolnshire, England, Colin Harrison studied at the Leicester College of Art from 1957 to 1961 and went on to the Royal College of Art in London. He subsequently lectured in the fine art department at the Ulster College of Art until 1973. In 1969,Harrison was a prize winner at the Irish Ex...

Born in Belfast in 1968, Davidson studied Fine Art in the University of Ulster, graduating in 1991.  He is very well known for his large scale portraits of notable figures in Irish society including Brian Friel, Seamus Heaney and fellow Northern Irish artist Basil Blackshaw ( All sold in Adam's Ir...

Formerly a Michelin-star chef and one of the founders of the infamous restaurant Roly Bistro, O'Daly decided to switch professions over 20 years ago to painting.  Two main themes in his work are the interior spaces of urban life and the rural landscape, particularly around his home in West Cork. ...

Conor Walton studied in his hometown at the National College of Art and Design. Having undertaken a joint degree in Fine Art and Art History he went on to complete an MA in Art History and Theory at the University of Essex. Walton also furthered his fine art training, travelling to Florence to study...

Born in Dublin to Padraic Fallon, the Irish poet and playwright and Dorothea Maher, the family later moved to Wexford where Fallon grew up. Fallon studied Natural Sciences at Trinity in the late 1950s and it was during his time at university that he began painting. He wanted to concentrate on his ar...

Born in 1941 in Cacoma, Washington, Dale Chihuly was introduced to glass when studying interior design at the University of Washington. After graduating in 1965, Chihuly enrolled in Harvey Littleton's seminal glass program at the University of Wisconsin and continued his glass studies at the Rhode I...

Belfast painter Daniel O’Neill made the decision to paint full time in 1945 having worked as an electrician in the Belfast Shipyard. He first exhibited with Victor Waddington in 1946, and later with the Dawson Gallery in the 1960s. He moved to London in the late 1950s, finally returning to Belfast...

David Nolan studied Visual Arts at the Dublin College of Marketing and Design. While he has always worked on private and public commissions, he has also enjoyed a successful career as a Freelance Art Director and background painter for a number of animation studios. Nolan has worked in Dublin, Lon...

David Clarke was born into a family of artists. His father was Harry Clarke, the renowned stained glass artist and book illustrator, and his mother was the painter Margaret Clarke, best known for her portraiture. The Harry Clarke Studios were in North Frederick Street, just around the corner from Be...

Northern Irish artist David Crone initially studied sculpture at the Belfast College of Art before turning to painting in the early 1960s, the medium in which he has worked ever since. His predominate theme of landscapes, rural and urban, move away from the traditional modes of expression. They ofte...

Deborah Brown studied in her native town at the Belfast College of Art, and later at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin and briefly in Paris. She won the Carroll’s Open Award in 1970 and along with Theo McNab represented Ireland at the Cagnes-sur-mer International Festival in 1973. Ni...

Derek Hill was born in Southampton, England, and spent most of the 1930s travelling around Europe. During his travels he studied art in museums and made a living by creating theatre designs for productions in London, Paris, Vienna, Munich and the former USSR. Returning to Britain in 1938/9 Hill be...

Originally from Limerick, Dermod O’Brien spent time studying paintings in Europe, particularly in the Louvre, following which he made the decision to paint full time. He studied under Charles Verlat at the Antwerp Academy, where he met Walter Osborne. O’Brien continued his studies at the Academi...

Born in Dublin, the son of Patrick J. Stephenson, who became Dublin Chief Librarian, and a brother of the architect Samuel Stephenson, he studied at the National College of Art 1939-46 and was awarded the Henry Higgins Travelling Scholarship in his final year. He first exhibited at the RHA in 1942 a...

Desmond Hickey attended the National College of Art and Design during the late 1970s and early 1980s. He received private tuition under fellow artist Henry Healy over the course of a five year period which had a significant impact on his artistic output. He also drew inspiration from the 19th centur...

Donald Teskey was born in Co Limerick in 1956. After graduating from the Limerick College of Art & Design with a Diploma in Fine Art in 1978 he began a successful career in Fine Art, exhibiting throughout Ireland as well as in the USA, UK, Germany and Canada. His talent has been rewarded on many...

Blackham was born in Dublin and studied art at the RHA Schools and Goldsmith College,London. She produced designs for the Yeats sisters and the Cuala Press. She was a regular exhibitor with the RHA and Watercolour Society of Ireland. She was a member of the Dublin Painters' Society from 1936 and s...

Douglas Alexander grew up in a wealthy household in Limerick. He began his working life as an apprentice in the wholesale merchants, J&G Boyd, before later moving to Dublin where he was employed full time as a lithographic by James Walker & Co. Printers. Alexander is best known for his high...

Best known for his public sculpture, Eamonn O’Doherty originally studied architecture at UCD and spent some time at Harvard Univeristy. He taught architecture in academic institutions including the DIT, Dun Laoghaire School of Art, University of Jordan, University of Nebraska and the Ecole Special...

Best known for his public sculptures such as The Family and Wolfe Tone in St. Stephen’s Green, Edward Delaney was born in Claremorris, Co. Mayo and studied at the National College of Art and Design  and received funding from the Art Council of Ireland to study casting in Germany. Delaney is consi...

Edward McGuire is best known as a portrait painter with a unique style that is aesthetically reminiscent of photo-realism, and as one author has noted Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity). In reality he work is closer to the latter which emerged in 1920s Germany, as an essentially realist style that ...

Edwin Hayes was born in Bristol but spent much of his childhood living in Dublin. Growing up next to the city's busy ports, a love of the sea was firmly imbedded in the artist and he sought to experience it at its rawest. An avid sailor in his youth, Hayes used his knowledge to gain employment as a ...

Eileen Murray was born in Templemore Co. Cork. Educated privately, she studied painting with Stanhope Forbes at Newlyn, Cornwall and was there with Laura Knight. She married Major Stewart Murray in 1908 and lived with him in India where she had considerable success with her painting, winning many me...

Eilís OConnell was born in Derry in 1953. She studied at the Crawford School of Art in Cork from 1970 to 1974, at Massachusetts College of Art, Boston from 1974 to 1975 and again at Crawford School of Art from 1975 to 1977 where she received the only award for Distinction in Sculpture that year. Ot...

Eleanor McCaughey graduated with a certificate in Classical Animation and a Higher National Diploma in Graphic Design from Ballyfermot College in 2001. Having worked in the field of Computer Graphics for four years Eleanor wanted to learn more traditional skills. As a result, in 2005 she joined the ...

Born 1903 in England; Rivers studied first at Goldsmith’s College, under Edmund J. Sullivan (1869-1933) from 1921 until 1924, showing distinct interest in wood engraving. She won a scholarship to the Royal Academy, where she studied for five years under Walter Sickert, and won a number of medals a...

Elizabeth Taggart was born in Donaghadee, Co. Down, in 1943.  She is the only daughter in a family of three. She was trained under John Luke and Romeo Toogood in Belfast’s College of Art, and whilst her figures echo Luke, her paintings are filled with symbolic images. She works slowly, reworking ...

Born in Milan, Lombardy, 1910, Ciuti trained as a scenographer and started working in advertising around 1928. The friendship and collaboration with Marcello Nizzoli, Bruno Munari, and Edoardo Persico pushed him to experiment with shapes and materials, taking him from Constructivism to the rationali...

Erskine Nicol first visited Ireland from his native Scotland in 1846, the beginning of a longstanding relationship with the country. Travelling through Ireland and especially Connemara, Nicol witnessed the outbreak of the great potato famine which devastated the over-populated West of Ireland caus...

Born in Dublin in 1882, Estella attended the Royal Hibernian Academy Schools under Walter Osborne, and entered the Metropolitan School of Art, where she became a pupil of William Orpen. In 1906, she visited the Rembrandt tercentenary exhibition in Amsterdam, which was a significant event for her. De...

The older of the two Hamilton sisters, Eva Hamilton was born in Co. Meath and, with her sister Letitia, studied under William Orpen at the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin. She went on to study at the Slade School of Fine Art and later specialised in portraiture, finding most success in her depi...

Evie Hone was born in Dublin. In 1918, she attended classes at Westminster under Walter Sickert (1860-1942), after which she went to Bernard Meninsky, who in 1920, advised her to study in Paris. The artist was joined there by Mainie Jellett who was to become a life long friend. They worked first und...

Originally from Strabane Co. Tyrone, Felim Egan studied at the Slade School of Art in London and became known internationally early in his career after representing Ireland at the 11th Biennale de Paris (1980) and at the 18th Bianale de Sao Paolo five years later. He spent a year at the British Scho...

Fergus O'Ryan was born in Limerick in 1911 and studied under Richard Butcher at the Limerick School of Art before attending the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art. He is listed as first exhibiting at the RHA in 1938 and from then he exhibited almost every year until 1984. O'Ryan held solo shows at t...

Born in Co. Louth, Frances Kelly studied at the Metropolitan school of Art in Dublin and later for three years in Paris under Léopold Survage. She exhibited at the RHA for the first time in 1929 and continued to show there until the late 1930s. Kelly was the first holder of the Henry Higgins...

Francis William Topham was an English watercolourist and enrgaver. Born in Leeds in 1808, he was apprenticed to his uncle who was a writing engraver. He moved to London in the early 1830s and began working as engraver of coats-of-arms before becoming employed by publishers and engravers Messrs. Fen...

Francis Sylvester Walker was a painter, illustrator and etcher. He studied both at the Royal Dublin Society and the Royal Hibernian Academy. He painted landscapes, portraits and genre scenes of Irish life. He also provided illustrations for numerous travel books including Hall, Mr. & Mrs. S. C...

Frank McKelvey studied at the Belfast School of Art in his hometown, winning the prize for figure drawing in 1912. He exhibited at the RHA for the first time in 1918 and continued to do so annually for the following fifty years, being elected a full member of the academy in 1930. Between 1923 and ...

Frank Egginton, son of the painter Wycliffe Egginton, was born in Cheshire and educated at Newton College and then Newton Abbot College of Art, before spending some time in an architect’s office perfecting his drawing. In 1930 he visited Co. Donegal to paint and continued to return year after ye...

Cork born painter Frederick Calvert was mainly known as a landscape painter. He exhibited in London and at the British Institution and the Royal Society of British Artists from 1827-1844, having published a book entitled 'Less on Landscape Colouring, Shadowing and Pencilling' in the UK in the 1810s....

Born in Banbridge, Co. Down, McWilliam studied at Belfast College of Art for two years and then at the Slade School of Fine Art in London where he studied under Henry Tonks and Randolph Schwabe. His intentions of becoming a painter had been altered when he met Henry Moore at Slade and decided to foc...

Born in Arklow, Co. Wicklow, George Campbell went to school in Dublin and moved to Belfast with his family. A self taught artist, he began painting in 1941 during the air raids. By 1944 he had developed his own style and held two shows – one with his brother Arthur at the Mol Gallery in Belfast, a...

George Russell grew up in Lurgan, Co. Amargh but moved to Dublin at the age of 11. He is known not only for his paintings but as a writer, poet, critic, theosophist and economist, and by his pseudonym ‘AE’ (a derivative of the word Aeon). He began night time painting classes at the Metropolita...

Born in Belfast in 1924 he was educated from 1941 until 1945 at Belfast High School and  attended evening classes at Belfast College of Art, studying jewelry, silversmith as well as painting. His interest in fine art was encouraged in the late 1950's when he attended painting classes in the studio ...

Born in Queenstown, now Cobh, Co. Cork, George Mounsey Wheatley Atkinson trained as a carpenter, later becoming Captain Atkinson as Government Surveyor of Shipping and Emigrants. When he began painting, it is no surprise that marine scenes were his subject of choice, and although self taught he exhi...

Born in France, Georgette Rondel studied painting in Paris. She worked for a time as a commercial artist before moving to London in the mid- 1930s, where she met fellow White Stag painter Nick Nicholls. At that time she began to paint seriously. Her early pictures are mainly abstract, but in about ...

Born at Craigavad, Co. Down, Georgina Moutray Kyle was educated at home by governess and tutors. After attending the Colarossi’s studio in Paris in 1880’s, she travelled widely before returning to Ireland with a distinctly modern palette and post-impressionist style. She also exhibited works of ...

Geraldine O'Reilly works mainly in painting, drawing and fine art printmaking. In November 2007 an illustrated book of her artwork was published by Alternative Entertainments. An exhibition of her work accompanied the launch of the book at the Civic Theatre Gallery, Tallaght, Co Dublin. Her work is ...

A mostly self taught artist, Belfast born Gerard Dillon began painting full time in the late 1930s, having left school at the age of fourteen to pursue a career as a painter and decorator and studying at the Belfast Technical School before moving to London in 1934. In the following decade Dillon spe...

Gerda Frömel was born in Schonberg in Czechoslovakia in 1931. She studied sculpture first at Stuttgart where she was awarded the academy scholarship in 1949 and then in Darmstadt and Munich. She came to Ireland in 1956 and settled here with her German husband Werner Schurmann who was himself an abl...

When anyone speaks about Gio Ponti, both as man and designer, two phrases are used consistently: joy de vivre and la dolce vita. They describe a career that encompassed everything: architecture, ceramics, industrial design, interiors, painting, writing, teaching, poetry and, significantly, editing E...

Gladys Maccabe was born in, Antrim. Her mother Elizabeth was a designer in the linen business, and her father George Chalmers, was a former army officer and artist specialising in calligraphy and illumination.  Artistic from a young age, at 16 she had a picture published in the Royal Drawing Soci...

Grace Henry (nee Mitchell) was born in comfortable surroundings to a Church of Scotland Minister, the second youngest of ten children. She lived and studied in London, Brussels and Paris where she met and married Paul Henry in 1903.They returned to England and lived in Surrey for several years, both...

Graham Knuttel was born in Dublin in 1954 and attended the Dun Laoghaire School of Art where he discovered his love for figurative, representational painting. He also worked as a sculptor for many years but he main success has been through his paintings.  Knuttel has won the Royal Canada Trust Awa...

The mother of George Campbell, Bowen took up painting shortly before her seventieth birthday, using materials belonging to her son, Arthur. In 1955 the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts - the forerunner of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland - organised her first solo exhibition. ...

Guy Hanscomb was born in London in 1968. Hanscomb trained at the New Orleans Academy of Fine Art, USA and Chelsea College of Art, London. Drawing inspiration from wilderness landscapes, Guy travelled extensively in Europe, America, Asia and Australia before coming to Ireland in 1999. Captivated ...

Swiss painter Hans Iten was born in Zurich in 1874, he studied painting and drawing at the School of Art, St. Gall. After a period of time working in Paris, Iten moved to Belfast in 1904 to work as a damask designer with linen manufacturers McCrum, Watson and Mercer Ltd. He was a member of the Belfa...

Harriet Kirkwood initially studied at the Metropolitan School of Art in 1908/9 session returning again ten years later . John Butler Yeats had encouraged her to study abroad which she did including studying with André Lhote in the 1930’s. She was friendly with, and much influenced by, fellow arti...

Born in London to Russian Jewish and Spanish parents, Harry Kernoff moved to Dublin at the age of fourteen and made it his home for life. Kernoff spend his days as an apprentice in his father’s furniture business, taking night classes at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art under Sean Keating, an...

Harry was the second son of Joshua Clarke and Brigid MacGonigal. A man from Dublin named William Nagle taught Harry the art of producing stained glass. In 1905, he began night classes at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art under AE Child. A scholarship in stained glass was awarded to Clarke by...

Born in Cork, Harry Scully studied in both London and Cork. Travelling widely throughout his career to artistic centres such as Newlyn, Normandy and Florence, Scully still found time to teach. His pupils included Lady Kate Dobbin and Robert Gibbings. Along with exhibiting in the RHA and the RA in ...

Born in Sheffield in 1894, Allen showed remarkable artistic talent from a very young age. He worked as a clerk in the steel works before enrolling in Sheffield Technical School of Art in 1912.  After the outbreak of WW1, Allen enlisted with the Royal Garrison Artillery of the Regular Army and in ...

Originally from Belfast, Hector McDonnell began his studies in Munich and Vienna where he studied under secessionist sculptor Hans Wotruba. McDonnell received his degree in History from Oxford University and has travelled extensively throughout Europe and Asia.  During the 1970s and 1980s he spent...

Born in Loughbrickland, Co. Down in 1831 Helen Mabel Trevor showed a talent for drawing as a child, and her father Edward Hill Trevor of Lisnageard House, set up a studio for her. In the 1850s she exhibited portraits and animals studies at the Royal Hibernian Academy. In her forties, after the deat...

Dublin artist Henry Healy studied at the Metropolitan School of Art, going on to London and Paris to further his formal training. His first dealings with the RHA came in 1938 when he first exhibited at the annual show. He was elected a member of the Academy in 1966 and served as treasurer until his ...

Henry Allan studied art in Belfast and Dublin before enrolling at the age of eighteen in the Academie Royaume in Antwerp, where Vincent van Gogh had briefly been a student. In the late nineteenth century an artist's education was not considered complete if they had not spent time studying in Paris o...

Scottish born Henry Robertson Craig studied at the Dundee College of Art before travelling extensively throughout Europe and painting scenes in Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Holland and Spain. During the Second World War Craig joined the intelligence branch of the British Army and worked designin...

Born in Dublin, Heron studied at the National College of Art, where she won the Taylor Scholarship three years in succession, 1944-46, one of only three students to do so since its inception. As a sculptor, she was inspired by Barbar Hepworth and Henry Moore. In 1943 she exhibited at the first Irish...

Howard Helmick was born in Ohio, in 1840 and studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He moved to Paris in 1854 and trained alongside Henry Baconat the École des Beaux-Artsin Paris, devoting himself to genre painting. He moved to London in 1872 and from there regularly visited Ireland....

Hughie O'Donoghue was born in Manchester in 1953. His father who was second generation Irish immigrants to Britain, encouraged him to study History and Literarture at University and spend time in Manchester City Art Gallery. This period proved to be formative for O'Donoghue's later artistic career...

The eldest daughter of Germany’s leading art critic of the thirties, Imogen Stuart was born into a cultured Berlin family and began to sculpt from a very early age. After meeting her Irish husband, Ian Stuart, the grandson of the artist Maud Gonne, through her studies in Berlin, she came to Irel...

Jack Coughlin was born in Connecticut in 1932, to parents of Irish-American heritage. He studied at the Rhode Island School of Design and later at the Art Students League of New York. Although his maturing as an artist coincided with the emergence of Abstract Expressionism, his work has always been ...

Jack Butler Yeats was born in London but spent most of his childhood with his grandparents in Co. Sligo. Initially self taught, Yeats took classes at various institutions including South Kensington, Westminster, Chiswick Art and West London schools of art. In the late 1880s he began his career as an...

Born in Dublin, Jack Hanlon originally studied for the priesthood at University College Dublin, Holy Cross and Maynooth College, but had begun exhibiting at the RHA at the age of twenty-one. His training mainly involved the art of looking, as he spent time in France, Belgium and Spain where he visit...

James le Jeune was born in Canada to an Irish mother and French/English father, but lived in Brittany from the age of two. After a period of study in Paris, he went on to Heatherley’s Academy and the Byam Shaw School in London, and then to the Student’s League in New York. Returning to London he...

Born in Dublin, James Nolan studied Fine Art at St. Martin's College of Art in London and at the National College of Art in Dublin under Seán Keating RHA and Maurice MacGonigal RHA. He graduated in Fine Art (Painting) in 1958 and from 1959 to 1977 he taught Fine Art at the National College of Art a...

A native of Tory Island (Co. Donegal), James Dixon enjoyed a simple life of fishing and farming, and was introduced to painting late in life by Derek Hill in 1959 when he visited the island. A virtually self taught artist who was perhaps excluded from the influence of historical precedents due to th...

Born in Dublin in 1965, James Hanley was educated at University College Dublin and the National College of Art and Design. By studying the history of art before formally training as a painter, Hanley was able to bring together a sophisticated understanding of painting, modes of representation, icono...

James Kenny is a graduate of Goldsmith College, London and studied animation at Ballyfermot Senior College, Dublin. He has travelled and worked extensively throughout Europe and was the lead concept artist on the Tomb Raider computer games. He divides his time between working in animation, film, the...

James MacIntyre was born in Coleraine in 1926. He is a self-taught artist who has worked professionally as a painter and sculptor since 1946. In 1956 he was awarded the CEMA Travelling Scholarship which took him to Paris for the first time. CEMA – Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Ar...

James Arthur O'Connor was born in Dublin, the son of an engraver and printer, William O'Connor. Although given a few lessons by Dublin artist William Sadler, he was largely self-taught. A lifelong friend of George Petrie and Francis Danby, he went to London with them in 1813, only to return a short...

Born in Belfast, Craig spent his early years in Ballyholme, Co. Down, where he was privately educated. Craig derived little satisfaction from working in the family tea business but it enabled him to travel and paint, particularly in Switzerland and the south of France. In time, he turned a more seri...

Sleator was born in County Armagh and studied at the Belfast College of Art. In 1910 he joined Orpen at the Metropolitan School of Art, Dublin. In 1912 he went on to the Slade and from there to Paris where he spent a brief period before the outbreak of the Great War. By 1915 he was back in Dublin to...

Jane O’Malley was born in Montreal, Canada in 1944. From 1969 until 1990 she lived and worked as an artist in St. Ives, Cornwall. In 1973 she married Irish artist Tony O’Malley (1913 – 2003) and in 1990 they settled in Ireland with regular visits to the Isles of Scilly, the Bahamas, and the Ca...

Jason Ellis studied sculpture in Sussex in the mid 1980s and worked subsequently in the conservation profession. Ellis cites the work of modern masters Constantine Brancusi, Barbara Hepworth and Gerda Frömel as sources of inspiration for his own practice. Ellis now works and exhibits extensively in...

Born near Annascaul, Co. Kerry, in 1874, Connor was thirteen when the family emigrated to Massachusetts. Shortly after their arrival his father died so Connor left home to seek work, beginning first in New York where he found employment as a sign-painter, a machinist and then as a stone-cutter for ...

Joan Jameson was the daughter of Sir Richard and Lady Musgrave of Tourin, Cappoquin, CoWaterford and studied in Paris at Academie Julian. She had two one-person shows at the Leicester Galleries and also The Wertheim and Goupil Galleries in London. In Ireland she was a member of the Dublin Painters a...

Dublin Sculptor John Behan studied at the National College of Art and Design, Ealing Art College in London and the Royal Academy School in Oslo. In July 1967 he became a founding member of Project Arts Centre, and in 1970 co-founded the Dublin Art Foundry. Behan was a member of The Arts Council 1973...

Belfast artist John Luke studied at the Belfast School of Art and won a scholarship which enabled him to study at the Slade School of Art in London under Henry Tonks, where he shared a studio with F. E. McWilliam. Exhibiting at galleries in London, he continued his studies at night at the Westminste...

Born in Limerick in 1950, John Shinnors studied for a short time at Limerick School of Art and Design under Jack Donovan before leaving the confines of conventional education to pursue his own vision of artistic creativity. His paintings tend to combine the figurative and abstract at once, with colo...

John Coyle was born in Scotland in 1928, and studied at the National College of Art & Design in Dublin and the Glasgow School of Art. He also studied in Paris, Florence and Madrid. He first exhibited in Cork in 1948 and has exhibited extensively in Ireland since then. He was head of the Art Depa...

Born in Co. Armagh in 1925 John Skelton studied at Queens University in Belfast, Belfast College of Art and St Martin’s School of Art, London. It was in London that he started his professional career and where he came under the influence of the Euston Road School in the late 1940s. He moved to Du...

John Boyd was born in Carlisle, England in 1957 and studied painting in the Slade School of Art 1976-8. He has resided in Ireland for the past 20 years and has exhibited internationally since the late 70s, most often in London, America and Ireland. He is now represented in numerous collections both ...

Born in Clonmel Co. Tipperary, John Burke studied at the Crawford School of Art in Cork. His gift was recognised by John O’Leary and his other tutors, and in 1967 he was awarded that Student of the Year prize. Three years later his further studies were enhanced when he was awarded the McCauley Fel...

Derry born John O’Connell studied at St. Mary’s College of Education in Belfast and went on to teach art full time at St. Patrick’s Knock. He exhibited his own work at the RUA and RHA and held solo shows at Queen’s University Belfast, Keys Gallery, Eakin Gallery and Guinness Gallery.  His w...

John O’Leary was born in Cork and studied at the Crawford School of Art from 1954 to 1957. Following this he was awarded that Gibson Bequest Scholarship to study in Paris where he studied at the Atelier Andre Lhote and the Academie Julian. During his life he was a highly active member of the art...

John O'Reilly is a mainly self-taught artist who has contributed to an extremely vibrant and creative art scene within Dublin and Europe. Working with oils and aerosols he paints contemporary objects and landscapes. His abstract paintings are influenced by graffiti art and bring an urban experienc...

John Doherty lives in Watson’s Bay, Sidney, but was born in Kilkenny, and trained in the Bolton’s Street College, where he studied architecture in the late 60s, moving on to the National College of Art, Artist in Residence, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. His scrutiny of the subjects he paints ...

Born in Belfast, Turner first trained in the Belfast College of Art before winning a scholarship to the Slade School of Art in London. In 1941 he returned to Ulster and taught at the Technical and High Schools in Coleraine, but also began to make a reputation as a portraitist. In 1943 he took a stud...

John Bellany was born in the Scottish coastal town of Port Seton. His father and grandfather before him were fishermen but Bellany chose a different career and headed to capital to study at Edinburgh College of Art. Those years proved hugely influential for Bellany and his artistic development. He...

Born in Dublin in 1966, Cronin studied in the National College of Art and Design, graduating in 1988. His work focuses primarily on the relationship between painting and the ever-increasing technological developments of our world. He is concerned with question of how the painted image can exist and ...

John Kingerlee was born in Birmingham in 1936. He had famly connections to county Cork through his mother's side of the family and in 1982, after twenty years living in Cornwall, he relocated to the Beara Peninsula in West Cork where he resides today.  His home in West Cork looks out across Kenmar...

Portrait artist John A. Blakey was born in Leeds but considers Spain, where he lived for a number of years, and Ireland, where his father was originally from, to be homes away from home. Blakey lectured in English and Communications at Harrogate College of Art and Technology for ten years before lea...

Armagh artist John B. Vallely studied at the Belfast College of Art, where he was taught by Tom Carr, and went on to further studies at the Edinburgh Art College before returning to his home town where he has lived and worked since. An avid supporter of Irish heritage in terms of both sport and musi...

Modernist sculptor John Bradley Storrs was born in Chicago in 1885. During his teens he studied at the Chicago Manuel Training School, where he worked with sculptural material for the first time. Storrs went on to study in Paris at the Academie Franklin, the Boston School of the Museum of Fine Art, ...

John Butler Yeats was one of Ireland’s finest portrait painters and during a long and productive lifetime, painted many of the leading figures of the Irish Renaissance. Among these were his famous sons, Jack B. Yeats, and the poet William Butler Yeats and writers such as Lady Gregory, AE and Padra...

Best known for his public sculpture, John Henry Foley was born in Dublin where he began his studies, continuing on to the Royal Academy Schools in London. He first exhibited at the RA in 1839 and was elected a member of the Academy in 1858. It is reported however that Foley ceased exhibiting at the ...

Born in Dublin in 1952, John Noel Smith attended Dun Laoghaire School of Art followed by postgraduate studies at der Universität der Künste Berlin. He lived in Berlin for twenty two years where he was an important member of its vibrant art community, returning to Ireland in 2002. Smith's abstract...

Born in Ballincollig in 1885 just outside Cork, his father William was originally a teacher and historian until he lost his job after serving a term in prison after the Fenian Rising of 1867. Joseph originally got work as a clerk at the tea and coffee merchants Newsom & Sons where he became friendly...

Belfast artist Joseph McWilliams studied at the Belfast College of Art and the Open University. He began lecturing in art education at the Ulster Polytechnic in 1973 and later became senior lecturer. He opened the Cavehill Gallery in 1986 in Belfast with his wife Catherine, while the continuing succ...

Joseph O'Reilly was born into a family of humble background in Upper Grangegorman, Dublin in 1865. He studied at the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) Schools from 1884-1888, and he was soon regarded as a brilliant student. He won a large number of prizes, and was already exhibiting pictures at the RHA ...

Although older than, Kavanagh's career seemed to run side by side with that of Walter Osborne, even before they set off together with Nathaniel Hill to study at Antwerp under Verlat in 1881. He is thought to have come to Brittany with Osborne in late 1882/early 1883, painting very similar subjects t...

Dublin born Joseph Sebastian Harrison exhibited regularly at Hendricks Gallery in the 1970s, as well as at the Irish Exhibition of Living Art in 72, 73 and 74 and the Independent Artist Exhibitions of the same years. His works have also been exhibited internationally and are housed in major collecti...

The daughter of Captain Henry Charles Fox of the King’s Dragoon Guards, Kathleen Fox came of an Irish Catholic upper middle class family with a British Army tradition. She was brought up at Glenageary Hall, Co. Dublin and went to school at St. Mary’s, Ascot and Loreto Abbey Convent, Dalkey. She ...

Kathleen Isabella Mackie was born in Belfast where she attended the School of Art from 1918. She moved to the the Royal Academy Schools in London in 1921 after winning various awards and there she came under the influence of well known painters George Clausen, Sir Gerald Kelly and Sir William Orpen....

Keith Wilson was born in Belfast, in 1971. He studied at the University of Ulster and at Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland, gaining an Honours Degree and a further Postgraduate Diploma in 1995. He returned to Ireland in 1995 and in 1999 was invited by the Ballinglen Arts Foundation in County Mayo t...

Born in Farnham, Surrey and educated at Lancing College, Hall began a life long friendship with London dealer Lucy Wertheim, who first offered to put on a exhibition of his work in her gallery in Mayfair. Wertheim, along with fellow artist Rakoczi, became the great influence of his art. From 1935-...

Kenneth Mahood was born in Belfast in 1930. After an apprenticeship in lithography, 1945-49, he turned to painting, winning a CEMA travel scholarship to Paris. Throughout the 50s he was a regular exhibitor at the Irish Exhibition of Living Art as well as the RUA and the Victor Waddington Gallery in...

Born in London in 1927, he initaly served in the Royal Navy and Fleet Air Arm until they were disbanded in 1948. He then studied in College of Art Gloucester and Cheltenham from 1948 - 1952. He was appointed head of painting in the Ulster College of Art in Belfast a position he held from 1953 - 1960...

Kitty Wilmer always wanted to go to art school. She got her wish aged sixteen when she entered the RHA Schools, where she won awards including the Taylor Scholarship which allowed her to move to London to study at The Slade. She later went with her sister-in-law, Rose Brigid Ganly to study with And...

Born in Bristol, Lady Kate Dobbin married Alfred Graham Dobbin, a tobacco manufacturer and High Sheriff of Cork. She studied drawing and painting at the Crawford Municipal College of Art, Cork in the early 1890s and exhibited extensively with the Royal Hibernian Academy between 1894 and 1947. She...

Laurence Campbell was the younger brother of the painter Christopher Campbell. While still attending classes, Laurence, a reserved person, began stone carving with a firm of commercial sculptors. He also studied at the Metropolitan School of Art, winning the Taylor Scholarship in 1935 and the Henr...

Born in Dublin 1892, he studied painting and drawing at the Metropolitian School of Art under the tutelage of William Orpen. He would be become along with fellow artists Sean Keating, Margaret Clarke, Sean Tuohy highly influential to the school of Irish painting in the early 20th century. A school w...

Originally from Co. Meath, Letitia Hamilton studied at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art where she was taught by William Orpen, continuing her studies at the Slade School of Art in London and with Frank Brangwyn. She exhibited annually at the RHA from 1909, and was elected a member in 1944. In t...

Liam Treacy was a native of Avoca, Co. Wicklow, where his family on both sides lived for many generations. During his early years Liam showed a strong interest in drawing and was encouraged and influenced by his brother Sean. He began his career in the 1950's with a solo-exhibition at the James Gal...

Born in Dublin in 1947, Belton attended the National College of Art and Design from 1966 to 1972. Belton is renowned for his sharply executed and meticulously detailed still-life compositions. These oil paintings most often consist of household objects, sometimes shown in stark contrast with more ...

Originally from Bray, Co. Wicklow, Lilian Davidson studied at Dublin Metropolitan School of Art where she won prizes in 1895 and 1896. In 1897 she won the RDS Scholarship which carried a free studentship, it didn’t come too soon as that was the year of her father’s death. She began exhibiting at...

Lily Yeats, daughter of John Butler Yeats and sister of W.B. and Jack B. Yeats, studied the craft of embroidery in London at the turn of the twentieth century. The skills she learned there were of the highest order as she worked for six years under May Morris who in turn had learned from her father ...

Dublin born, Lily Williams was first taught by May Manning and later went on to the Metropolitan School of Art, where her contemporaries included Estella Solomons, Beatric Glenavy and Cissie Beckett. Well known for her Republican sympathies she fell out with her family at the time of the Rising. Her...

A self taught artist, Louis le Brocquy was born in Dublin and abandoned his job working in a lab in 1938 to pursue a career in painting. In 1947 le Brocquy moved to London which was to be his base for the next ten years, and showed his work in Paris, New York and Italy. He married Anne Madden in 195...

Mainie Jellett (born Mary Harriet Jellett) began painting in watercolours at the young age of eleven, studying under Sarah Cecilia Harrison and May Manning, before taking classes in Wimereux and Brittany, France, from the age of fourteen. In 1914 she entered the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art whe...

Margaret Clarke was born and educated in Newry. In 1906 she was awarded a scholarship to the DMSA, where she became one of Orpen’s star pupils, and won many prizes. Her fellow students included Beatrice Glenavy, James Sleator, Kathleen Fox, Leo Whelan, Patrick Tuohy and Harry Clarke, whom she marr...

Margaret Stokes was first influenced by her cousin, the artist Mainie Jellett, who gave her art lessons from an early age. She was a pupil at The Royal Hibernian Academy School and she won the Purser Griffin Scholarship which she used to attend the Glasgow School of Art and later went to the Edinbu...

Originally from India, Maria Simmonds-Gooding moved to Ireland with her family at the age of eight. Her early interest in art practice led to her an education at the National College of Art and Design, and later Le Centre de Peinture in Brussels and the Bath Academy of Art in Corsham. As well as exh...

Maria Webb was probably a student at the RDS Schools. She started exhibiting at the RHA in 1873, and won several prizes at the Amateur Artists’ Society in 1877. She went to Paris in 1880, becoming a pupil of Robert-Fleury at the Academie Julian. She made regular summer visits to Brittany (c.1881-1...

Marion King was a cartoonist, illustrator and painter on glass. She was born in Trim, Co. Meath but spent much of her early life with her family in Leeds, England where she studied at Leeds College of Art. She returned to Ireland in 1922 and exhibited in several locations around Dublin during her li...

Marjorie Fitzgibbon has been commissioned for several significant public and private sculptures of important Irish figures including; a bronze bust of James Joyce located in St. Stephen's Green, a bronze statue of James Joyce at North Earl Street, Dublin and twelve bronze heads of the of living Iris...

  Mark Francis was born in 1962 in Newtownard, Northern Ireland. He studied Fine Art Painting at St Martins and Chelsea Schools of Art in London, where he currently resides. Francis' practice over the past thirty years has focused on making paintings with singular optical intensity — powerful, a...

Mark O’Neill was born in Birkenhead in 1963 to Irish immigrants. During his childhood, his family lived in many different countries including Mauritious, South Africa, Nigeria and Malta before settling in London where he studied Fine Art at the Kingston College of Art. He subsequently established ...

Belfast artist Markey Robinson studied briefly at the Belfast School of Art, but mainly learned from his grandfather who was a painter and decorator. He worked in various other professions including as an electrical welder and a lightweight boxer. His paintings returned to the same themes of people...

English born Martin Gale moved to Ireland as a child and studied in Dublin at the National College of Art. His first solo show came just two years after he graduated and was held at the Neptune Gallery in Dublin in 1975. In 1980 Gale represented Ireland at the XI Biennale de Paris, Nice, Lisbon, Fin...

Martin Finnin is an abstract painter and artist based in Ireland. His work is characterised by a brazen use of colour and bold shapes set against a multi-layered landscape.  Working on several canvases at once he builds paintings by adding and removing layers until the pieces resolve, a process th...

Mary Swanzy took classes at the RHA and Metropolitan School of Art in her home town of Dublin before travelling to Paris to work in various artists’ studios. Although mainly based in Dublin in her early career, she spent much of her time travelling around Eastern Europe and North America. In 1926 ...

Mary Kate Benson was born in Dublin an studied in England under Herkomer and Calderon and in Paris under Lazare. Her sister, Charlotte, was also a painter. In 1891 she visited Brittany and was based in Quimper. Her work rarely comes up for sale. Mary Kate Benson featured in 'Irish Women Artists: 18...

Maurice MacGonigal was apprenticed to his uncle Joshua Clarke’s glass studio in his hometown of Dublin at the age of fifteen, where his cousin Harry Clarke gave him much encouragement. Politically active in his youth, he joined the first Na Fianna Éireann in 1917, being interned first in Kilmai...

Maurice Desmond was born in Co. Louth and studied at the Limerick School of Art. He exhibited regularly at the Oireachtas shows and the Irish Exhibition of Living Art, where he won a first prize in 1969. Two decades later, he had three solo shows at the Triskel Arts Centre in Cork in the 1980s. From...

Born in Belfast in 1911, he educated at the Malone Public School while also attending night classes at the Belfast College of Art. While attending college he was awarded the Dunville Scholarship allowing him to attend day classes. After college, Wilks resided in Cushendun, in the Glens of Antrim....

An infamous French artist and decorator, known for his work with studio glass and stained glass windows, Ingrand began his training at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris specialising in the decorative arts, under the guidance of of important artists at the time such as Jacques ...

Dublin born artist May Guinness began a long association with the Water Colour Society of Ireland in 1892. Just two years after she began exhibiting there she moved to Newlyn, Cornwall, for a period with Mildred Ann Butler where she studied under Norman Garstin. Guinness broadened her horizons furth...

Melanie Le Brocquy has exhibited work in several group exhibitions in Salzburg, 1962, Dublin at the Dawson gallery in 1973 and the Taylor Galleries in 1986 and 2000. Her work is represented in the collection of the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin, the National Self Portrait Collect...

Melchiorre Bega was as an Italian architect and designer who has come to define the urban and domestic worlds that we inhabit today. Born into a design family, who ran the company Vittorio Bega & Figli in Bolonga, they specialised in manufacture and restoration of furniture. Melchiorre, along wi...

Michael Coleman, originally from Dublin, studied at the Limerick School of Art. After living for a brief time in Vienna, he returned to Ireland and has remained living and working in Dublin since. At the height of his artistic vision he received the Carrolls Open Award at the Irish Exhibition of Liv...

Born in Kells, Co. Meath, Michael Farrell studied in London at St. Martin’s School of Art and later at Colchester College of Art. Visits to Donegal, London, Paris and New York in the mid-1960s resulted in an innovative body of work, related to Celtic themes. His diverse range evolves from an objec...

Michael Canning was born in Limerick in 1971, he studied there at the School of Art & Design and then in Greece at the School of Fine Arts in Athens. He was awarded his Master’s Degree in Fine Art from the National College of Art & Design in Dublin in 1999. In 2003, Canning was the recipie...

Until a few decades ago the painter Power O’Malley was better known in America than in Ireland, with many of his paintings included in prestigious collections there. Born in Co. Waterford in 1878, Power O’Malley went to study in France and Italy, though exactly where is not clear. Nor is it kno...

Mike Fitzharris began his formal art studies in his hometown at the Limerick School of Art in the early 1970s, continuing to postgraduate level at the Hochschule für Bilden Kunst in Berlin. His work has become increasingly acknowledged and he has enjoyed a run of solo shows since the early 1990s at...

A privileged upbringing allowed Kilkenny-born Mildred Anne Butler to travel to London in 1886 to study under Paul Jacob Naftel (1817-91) and later to Paris in 1894 where she joined the studio of Henri Gervex (1852-1929) for a time. She then travelled to Newlyn with Mary Guinness to study under Norma...

Moyra Barry was born in Dublin and attended the Royal Hiberian Academy School where she won a Taylor Prize. She later went on to study at Slade in London before moving to Quito in Ecuador where she taught for some time. On returning to Dublin she exhibited regularly with the RHA and the Dublin Paint...

Known for her portraits, landscapes and murals, Muriel Brandt studied at the Belfast College of Art and won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art in London where she studied for three years and was elected Associate Royal College of Art (ARCA) in 1937. Brandt’s first major commission was seven...

Wynne-Jones was born at Dolgellau, north Wales, the youngest of three children. A delicate child, she was educated at home. Her love of animals started her drawing and painting, and she received instruction from the children's book illustrator Ruth Gervis. In 1952 she turned her full attention to p...

Nanna Ditzel was born in Copenhagen in 1923. She studied at the Danish School of Arts and Crafts and at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts.  As a designer she has always been interested in the challenge of working with different materials and new techinques. She never shied away from experiment...

Born in Drogheda Co. Louth, Nano Reid trained at the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin, where she studied under Sean Keating and Harry Clarke. Afterwards she travelled to Paris, enrolling at the Académie de la Grande Chaumiére along with other Irish artists such as Kathleen Fox. Reid then atten...

Born in Bordeaux in 1957, du Pasquier now based in Milan is one of the original members of the Memphis Group. Founded by Italian architect and designer Ettore Sottsass in 1981, as collective of designers who produced furniture, fabrics, ceramics and glass. Their designs are characterized by an ephe...

Nathaniel Hill was born in Drogheda and studied in Dublin before going to the Academy in Antwerp (1881 – 1883) to study under Verlat at the same time as Walter Osborne and Joseph Malachy Kavanagh. He was in Brittany during the autumn of 1883 and stayed at the famous artists' inn Maison Gloanec, th...

Grogan was born in Cork and began life as an apprentice to his father, a turner and block maker, but had a love for the arts and taught himself to draw. At his father’s request, he enlisted in the British Army and served in America during the War of Independence. Little, if any, is known of the pa...

Nathaniel Hone was the first native artist to introduce the influence of 19th century French Naturalism to Irish painting. He was born in Fitzwilliam Place, Dublin in 1831, the son of Brindley Hone, a merchant and director of the Midland Great Western Railway and was the great-grandnephew of the 18t...

Originally from Lancashire in England, Neil Shawcross studied at the Bolton College of Art and Lancaster College of Art before moving to Belfast to take up the position of Lecturer at the Belfast College of Art. Primarily a portrait painter, he is also a print maker and has designed large scale stai...

British painter, photographer and film maker Nevill Johnson moved to Belfast in 1934. He then moved to Dublin in 1949, where he lived for the next five years. He quickly became a major artistic figure among the fraternity of atists, poets and playwrights centred in and around Baggot Street in Dubli...

Niccolo d'Ardia Caracciolo was born in Dublin to an Italian father Ferdinando Caracciolo, Prince of Cursi, from an old Italian family in Naples, while his mother was a native of Waterford, of the Fitzgerald dynasty of Waterford Castle. He was educated at the Oratory School in England and following ...

Nick Miller was born in London in 1962 and attended the University of East Anglia, graduating in Development Studies in 1984. Shortly after, Miller moved to Ireland, where he continues to live and work in county Sligo. His genre paintings, similar in style to this work, were subject of a solo exhibi...

Nicholls was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire, the son of an English father and an Irish mother. As a child he spent a good deal of time with relatives in County Cavan. A quantity surveyor by training, in 1935 he turned to painting, in which he was self-taught. His early pictures are conventional waterc...

Niels Otto Møller was born in 1920 in Denmark. He started his studies by training to become a cabinet maker before studying design in Arhus.  In 1944, he founded the J.L.Mollers Mobelfabrik Company which is dedicated to furniture production following a strict technical formula for design. The pi...

Originally from London, Noel Murphy studied at the University of Ulster and trained later at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin. His work has been shown at numerous galleries including the Emer Gallery in Belfast and Pictoon’s Gallery in London. Murphy has won numerous prizes includi...

Derry born artist Norah McGuinness won a three year scholarship to study at the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin at the age of 18, where she was taught by Harry Clarke, Patrick Tuohy and Oswald Reeves before moving to London to study at the Chelsea School of Art. In 1923 she won an RDS medal and...

Belfast born Noreen Rice attended the Methodist College, 1947-50 and won two first prizes in art. Her piano teacher Tom Davidson introduced her to Gerard Dillon and George Campbell who taught her in the early 1950s and became closely associated with the two artists till their deaths in 1971 and 1979...

Originally from Limerick, Norman Garstin went to Belgium in 1880 and spent two years in Antwerp studying under Charles Verlat. From there he moved to Paris where he came into contact with Edgar Degas and worked for three years in Charles Carolus-Duran’s studio. Garstin exhibited at the RHA continu...

Norman McCaig was born in Bangor, Co Down in 1929. He came from an artistic family and expressed an interest in painting from his schooldays. He took up painting full-time after studying at Belfast College of Art, and later in Paris. He is known for his panoramic views of the Irish countryside, trea...

He studied languages at Trinity College Dublin, until he became an artist in residence at the Kilkenny Design Centre in 1966. He worked as a teacher of Art, English, Irish and French from 1943 to 1964 at St Columba's College, Dublin. He initially attended night class at the NCAD and studied briefl...

Belfast artist Olive Henry is known not only for her painting but also her photography and stained glass. After taking evening classes at the Belfast School of Art she was apprenticed to glass company WF Clokey & Co. Ltd where she worked for more than half a century. Henry had an interest in pho...

Osvaldo Borsani was born in 1911 in Varedo, Italy. He studied at the Beaux-Arts Accademia di Brera in Milan and architecture at Politecnico di Milano, graduating in 1936. While still in school he participated in the fifth Milan Triennale, presenting his Casa Minima project, which earned him a silver...

  From a young age growing up in Dublin, Paddy Campbell had a profound interest in painting and drawing. However, as a young man in the context of 1960s Ireland, he was of the belief that it would be too difficult to make a living as an artist, despite taking courses in NCAD throughout the sixties...

In the 1960s MacMiadhachain was an outstanding contributor to the Irish Exhibitions of Living Art, alongside Gerard Dillon, Camille Souter, Nevill Johnson, Patrick Collins and Louis Le Brocquy. In the 1940s he attended Belfast School of Art, the alma mater of William Scott – a profound influence ...

Represented by the Hallward Gallery, Pat MacAllister is a graduate of Fine Art, Institute of Art and Design & Technology in Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin. His work has been exhibited at the RHA and in 2004 The Ballinglen Foundation in Ballycastle, Co. Mayo awarded him a Fellowship. He has exhibited ...

Patrick was born 6 November 1910 at Dromore West, Co. Sligo, second of four children of William Collins, RIC constable, and Mary Collins (née McLaughlin), daughter of a businessman from Dowra, Co. Cavan. William Collins contracted tuberculosis c.1915 and was discharged from the police. They moved t...

Cork artist Patrick Hennessy’s painting skills were recognised early in his career, winning a scholarship to study at Dundee College in Scotland in the mid 1930s, and a further one which enabled him to travel to Paris and Rome. During his time at Dundee he met his future partner, artist Henry Robe...

Born in Kilbrittan, County Cork, Patrick Scott studied architecture at UCD, and began his career working with the architect Michael Scott. A self-taught painter, to begin with he painted only in his spare time but in 1960 he decided to devote himself full-time to painting. In the book ‘Three Pai...

Born in Manhattan and raised in Cork, Patrick worked and travelled in America, England and Spain before returning to Cork. His work is included in many private and public art collections, and was acquired by the UCC/Glucksman Gallery Art Collection in July 2006. He also exhibited at The Hunt Museum ...

Patrick Heron was internationally renowned as a painter and critic. Born in Leeds, he attended the Slade School of Art and was strongly influenced by Paul Cezanne, Georges Braque and Henri Matisse, whose works he saw in London in various galleries as a young man. Following World War II his main infl...

Cork born Patrick Murray studied at the Crawford School of Art and fast became involved in all aspects of theatre production both in Ireland and abroad. Known mainly as a set designer, he was also credited in various productions for costume design, and worked on plays by Irish authors such as Patric...

Patrick Hickey was born in Bannu, India, now Pakistan. His Father was a Colonel in the Indian Army, 1st Punjab Regiment. After attending Ampleforth College, Yorkshire, he moved to Dublin in 1948 to study architecture at University college Dublin. After graduating he worked for the architect Michael ...

Patrick Pye was born in England but grew up in Dublin. He started painting in 1943 under the sculptor Oisin Kelly, and later studied at the  National College of Art. In 1957 he won the Mainie Jellett Scholarship, which enabled him to travel extensively in Europe.  It was while on visit to the Nati...

At the National College of Art, Swift won a travelling scholarship to study in France and Italy. In the 1950s he settled in London and was associated with a group of artists and writers in Soho such as Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, George Barker and Patrick Kavanagh and in 1959 he co-founded with the...

Born Mullingar, County Westmeath in 1943, Patrick Grahams childhood shaped his life and art. His father emigrated in search of work, his mother spent long periods in hospital suffering from TB, and, aged six, Graham was sent to a small rural community. There he experienced the solitude, the wildnes...

Patrick Leonard was born in Rush, County Dublin in 1918. He studied under Seán Keating and Maurice MacGonigal at the Metropolitan School of Art, Dublin. He has exhibited at the RHA since 1941, and was elected an Honorary Member in 1983. His painting style is classified by its realist approach to d...

Paul Henry was born in Belfast and attended the Belfast School of Art. He travelled to Paris in 1898, where he studied at the Academie Julian and was influenced by the rural realism of Jean Francois Millet. He later moved to Academie Carmen recently opened by James Abbott McNeill Whistler. In P...

Born in London, to a German father and an Irish mother, Egestorff was educated in Germany and, whilst there, he began to take lessons in drawing. Much influenced by the Expressionist movement in Germany, he came to Dublin about 1922 and studied under Mainie Jellett who revolutionized his work. He w...

Pauline Bewick had an unusual upbringing, being born in Newcastle, England, and raised mainly in Co. Kerry yet moving around Ireland frequently. Mainly self taught, although she did attend the National College of Art and Design in 1950, her creativity found an outlet early in life as her earliest sk...

Born in London in 1929, Peter Collis studied drawing and painting at Epsom College of Art between 1949 and 1952. He moved to Ireland in 1969 working for the Shell Oil company. His canvasses are characterised by a powerful and dramatic style influenced by masters such as Paul Cezanne, whom he adored...

Born in Waterford, Peter Curling’s interest in horses and the tradition of their depiction began in his early childhood when his mother was involved in the sale of sporting art. His talent for equine depictions was soon recognised and at the age of fourteen, then living in England, he had his firs...

Peter Monaghan studied at the National College of Art and Design during the mid 1970s. After having worked with Dara O'Lochlainn's design firm for many years and having received awards for his creations in packaging, graphics and industrial design, Peter Monaghan set up his own firm in 1983 - Monagh...

Peter Knuttel was born in 1945. He studied in the National College of Art and Design in Dublin and since then has achieved international recognition for his etchings and watercolours. Peter is one of Irelands best known watercolourists and print makers. He is a founder member of the Graphic Studio i...

Born in Dublin in 1950, the second of two sons, Phil (as he was known to everyone) spent his early years living in Bray, Co. Wicklow. Kelly later moved to Birmingham, where his father, Geoffrey, worked as an architect.  His love of Jazz, urban life and bright sunlight decided his destination to ...

Piero Fornasetti was born in Milan in 1913 into a wealthy bourgeois family. His father was an Lombard entrepreneur who expected his son to follow him into the family business. Yet from an early age Fornasetti showed an artistic flair producing paintings, drawings, architectural models. In 1932, Pie...

Born in Dublin in 1946, Richard has divided his time over the past 35 years between Dublin, Milan and Tokyo. His long relationship with Japan has been a major influence on his work, most notably with his use of handmade kozo washi paper to create large-scale works. Colour plays an important role in ...

Moynan was born in Dublin and first studied medicine at the Royal College of Surgeons, before attending the Metropolitan School of Art with Roderic O’Connor. He trained at the Antwerp Academy between 1883 and 1885 where he won first prize in painting from life. Whilst there, Moynan shared lodging...

Dublin born artist Robert Ballagh has worked in numerous, but always recognisable, styles, but has most often been labelled a pop artist and a photorealist. His painting career began in 1966, working as an assistant to Michael Farrell where he received his only training, and is otherwise self taught...

Moony was born in Athlone and was educated at Galway Grammar School and in Devon. He was greatly influenced by the Symbolist style of Italian Post-Impressionist Giovanni Segantini, painting landscapes filled with symbolist themes that reflected his interest in Celtic folklore and mysticism. During ...

Robert Taylor Carson studied at the Belfast College of Art. Working as an unaccredited war artist for the United States Air Force in Northern Ireland, he recorded the daily activities of the American troops during 1943-45. After the war he spent a year in America working as a portrait painter and ...

Born Ballymena Co. Antrim, 1940, he studied at Trinity College. While he had no formal art education, he developed an interest in sculpture in the early 1970s. In order to learn and develop his skill he got instruction from sculptors such as David Wynne in London and Milton Hebal in Rome. Both of wh...

Originally from Co. Roscommon, Roderic O’Conor studied at the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin and received academic training at the RHA before moving to Antwerp, Paris, Grez-sur-Loing and Pont Aven, where he became friends with Paul Gauguin. Exhibitions of O’Conor’s work have been held at...

Romeo Toogood studied at the Belfast School of Art and the Royal College of Art in London. Returning to his home town of Belfast in 1930 he joined a small group of artists known as the Ulster Unit, and taught at various high schools and institutes including the Belfast College of Art where his stude...

Mayo based sculptor Rory Breslin originally studied at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin and from there he travelled further afield  to work in foundries in Carrera, Italy, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. On his return to Dublin he founded 'Head Sculpture Galleries' and took up a po...

Brigid Ganly was the daughter of the artist Dermod O’Brien who became President of the RHA in the year she was born a position he held till 1944 and spent her early childhood at the family estates in Limerick , Cahirmoyle before the family returned to Dublin in 1919. She attended the Metropolitan ...

Tipperary born Rose Barton, began a long relationship with the Royal Water Colour Society of Ireland in 1872 when she first exhibited with them, and later became a Committee member. Three years later she spent some time in Brussels, taking painting and drawing classes, and in 1878 she exhibited for ...

Born in 1958, Wilson studied Fine Art at the University of Ulster and the Chelsea College of Art and Design, London.  The artist has acquired several key commissions, including those of various Nobel Laureates, of the St Lucian Prize winner Derek Walcott for the National Portrait Gallery in London...

Born in Dublin, Rowan Gillespie spent the first nine years of his life in Cyprus. At sixteen he attended the York School of Art moving the following year to Kingston College of Art, London and later to Statens Kunstskole, Oslo. Working exclusively in bronze, an early yet recurrent them in his work ...

Roy Johnston, originally from Pomeroy, Co. Tyrone, studied at Stranmillis College and then at the Belfast College of Art. With his strong passion for the history of art as well as art practice, he was senior lecturer at the University of Ulster and has published books on Irish artists, among them Ro...

Samuel Taylor enjoyed travelling around Ulster, painting watercolours of counties Derry and Down, and landscapes of Donegal and of Lough Erne. These he exhibited at the Belfast Art Society in 1891 and at the RHA in 1896. During the early twentieth century, Brittany became of great importance to hi...

Samuel Spode was an equestrian artist who specialised in the portraiture of sporting horses.  He painted many famous horses such as Harkaway a chesnut horse by Economist out of Fanny Dawson, by Nackbocklish out of his Miss Tooley, by Teddy the Grinder. He was bred at Sheepbridge, Co. Down and was...

Sarah Purser studied at the Academie Julian 1878-79 which was unusual for an Irish woman at the time.There she met and became friends with artists of many nationalities including Swiss student Louise Breslav with whom she became a lifelong friend. She was to return regularly to Paris visiting artist...

Born in 1935 in Dublin, Sean McSweeney now lives and works in Sligo. His work is almost entirely based on the small area of shoreline and bogland that surrounds his home on a small peninsula in that county. He has had numerous successful solo shows since the 1960s at prominent Dublin galleries inc...

Dublin born painter Sean Scully studied at St. Martin’s College of Art and later at Croydon College of Art, both in London, before moving to the United States. An internationally renowned artist, Scully’s work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum and Museum of Modern Art in ...

Born in Lancashire, England, Sean Molloy moved to Ireland in the early 70s. He began painting in his late teens and started exhibiting during the late 80s. In 1989 some of his watercolours were published as limited edition prints by Matthew Ryan (Thurles). Towards the end of the 1990s, he returned t...

Seán O’Sullivan was born in 44 St Joseph’s Terrace, South Circular Road, and later raised in 126 St Stephen’s Green in Dublin, where his father, John, ran a business as a carpenter and joiner. He was educated with the Christian Brothers at Synge Street. Measuring over six feet, he was a good...

Selma McCormack lives and works in Dublin. She studied painting and sculpture part time for many years before starting to exhibit her work in the late 1980's.Originally her sculpture consisted of clay and wax modelling and she later exhibited bronze casts of her work. Generally figurative in subject...

Motivated by personal experience, Sheila explores universal themes of motherhood, love, loss, pain and bereavement. Her paintings are crafted with multiple layers of oil paint and varnish, giving her work a tonal depth and rich texture. Her influences are primarily the Old Masters like Carravaggio ...

Born in 1920 in Meldal, Norway, Ressell studied carpentry at the Norwegian National Academy of Craft & Art Industry from 1943 until 1947. In the early 1950s, Ressell established his own studio, designing for various clients and manufacturers, including Niels Vodder. In 1968, Ressell became the ...

Originally from Belfast, John Lavery held his first art related job in a photographic studio in Glasgow where he coloured prints and touched up negatives. Having been orphaned at a young age and spending years with various relatives, this was his introduction to the art world. Lavery went on to stud...

Sophia Rosamund Praeger was born in Holywood Co. Down and studied at the Slade in London under Legros where she won prizes for clay modelling. She studied in Paris before returning to Ireland setting up a studio first in Belfast then in Holywood. Her reputation was established when she first exhibit...

Stanhope Forbes was born in Dublin. He started his art studies at Dulwich College of Art and The Royal Academy Schools. In 1880 he travelled to Paris to study under Bonnat at his atelier in Clichy. He went to Brittany in 1881 and one of his pieces from that trip was exhibited at the RA in 1882 and...

Born in Dublin to émigré parents who had moved to Limerick in the 1870s from Eastern Europe, she was educated at Alexandra's College and later at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art. Like other contemporary artists, Evie Hone and Mainie Jellett, Steyn travelled to Paris in the 1926 to study, acc...

A former President of the Royal Hibernian Academy, Stephen McKenna was born in London and studied at the Slade School of Fine Art. During his career he has travelled widely and lived in Germany, Belgium and Italy as well as in Donegal. He exhibits regularly in Dublin at the Kerlin Gallery and the RH...

Stephen Loughman lives and works in Dublin. His painting is very distinctive in its use of imagery that the artist has sourced from commercial films. This creates a hyper-realistic aesthetic to his work in which the painted surface takes on the appearance of a still from a video or moving image. He ...

Much loved in his native Poland where he studied at the Krakow Academy of Fine Art, Tadeusz Brzozowski has received international success since the 1950s, with works in the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. He exhibited a number of works at ROSC 1967 exhibition...

Born in Holywood, County Down, Tate Adams was born William Allen Adams. Known for his wood engravings at the RHA, he held his first joint exhibition organized by the Encouragement of Music and Arts (CEMA) with Gerard Dillon in 1949. Several works in the exhibition depict scenes from Ceylon from a s...

Terence P. Flanagan was born in Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh, and studied at the Belfast College of Art. After teaching art at St. Mary’s College of Education for twenty-eight years and holding the position of Head of Art Department for seventeen, he decided to focus his attention on painting full t...

Theo McNab was born in Dublin in 1940. He does not have any formal artistic training, instead he us mostly self-taught. Despite this his paintings, abstract and minimalist landscapes, are highly accomplished studies, executed in muted tones. His works often from a grid structure, similar to fellow I...

Born in 1929 Thomas Ryan attended the Limerick School of Art, then the National College of Art in Dublin, where he studied under Seán Keating and Maurice MacGonigal. He first exhibited at the RHA in 1957 and became an associate member in 1968. He was elected President of the RHA in 1982 and served ...

Thomas Hovenden was sent from his home in Dunmanway to an orphanage in Cork City when his parents died during the Great Famine in 1847. Nine years later he was apprenticed to the Cork carver and gilder George Tolerton who noted Hovenden’s skill at draughtsmanship and sent him to the Cork Scho...

Thomas Creswick (5 February 1811 – 28 December 1869) was an English landscape painter and illustrator, and one of the best-known members of the Birmingham School of landscape painters....

Born in Hatch Street, Dublin, Goulding grew up in Wicklow but was educated in England from the age of 7. He was awarded a 2 year scholarship to study Textile Design at the State School of Art, Konstfackskolan, in Stockholm. Largely self-taught as a painter, he has been exhibiting professionally sinc...

Tom Carr was born in Belfast and studied at the Slade School of Art in London in 1929, under Henry Tonks and Wilson Steer. After some time spent in Italy, he returned to London where he exhibited in various galleries over several years, and in 1933 took part in a group exhibition where the artists d...

Kilkenny born painter Tony O’Malley began painting full time in 1958 having worked as a Bank Clerk previously while painting in his spare time. He is best known for his paintings done in Cornwall, where he lived for thirty years after visiting St Ives in 1955 and returning to settle there in 1960....

Born in London in 1946, Trevor Geoghegan studied at Worthing College of Art, Sussex and later at the Chelsea School of Art, London graduating in 1968.  He moved to Ireland in 1971, where he is now based and began lecturing in NCAD from 1978 - 2004 and currently he teaches a painting course at the ...

Born in Dublin in 1918, Una Watters attended the National College of Art where her skills as a painter were encouraged by Maurice MacGonigal. Between 1956 and 1965 she had several works exhibited by the RHA, was a member of the Society of Dublin Painters and won an Arts Council Award in 1965. Much o...

Verner Panton, born in Gamtofte, Denmark, studied at Odense Technical College before enrolling at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen as an architecture student. From 1950-1952 he worked in the architectural firm of Arne Jacobsen before founding his own independent studio for archite...

Veronica Bolay is an Irish painter born in Germany in 1941. She studied painting and costume design at the National College of Art and Design in Hamburg and then Group Therapy at Aachen University before moving to Ireland in 1971. She has lived near Westport since 1996. Bolay has exhibited all over...

Walter Frederick Osborne was born in Dublin in 1859, the second son of an animal painter William Osborne. His family lived in Castlewood Avenue, Rathmines and he may have spent some time in his father’s studio before attending the Royal Hibernian Academy Schools in Dublin. He also seems to have at...

William Conor was born in Belfast and studied graphic design at the Government School of Design and was then apprenticed to a poster designer. He exhibited at the RHA for the first time in 1918 and continued to do so until the year before his death. During both World Wars Conor was commissioned by t...

William Crozier studied at the Glasgow School of Art 1949-1953 in his hometown of Glasgow before dividing his time between travelling through Europe, America and South Africa and his studios in Hampshire and from the 1980s his studio and home in West Cork. Examples of his work can be found in many...

William Scott was born in Greenock, Scotland, but moved to Enniskillen with his family at the age of 11. His formal art training began at the Belfast College of Art and later won a scholarship to study at the Royal Academy Schools in London where he took classes in both painting and sculpture. From ...

William Osborne is today best remembered as the father of the artist Walter Osborne. But he was a significant artist in his own right. He specialised in painting animals especially his own terriers who were often depicted in his studio. Strickland wrote ''His pictures of dogs, in which he excelled, ...

William Sadler was born about 1782 and practiced in Dublin as a painter, producing mainly views of neighbourhoods of the city and its environs. He was known to have produced many copies of the old masters and was fond of painting dramatic scenes, ones of conflagrations being quite numerous. Known p...

Born in Dublin, McGuinness was a landscape painter who began his career as an architect, exhibiting his drawings and designs at the RHA. Subsequently, McGuinness starting taking evening classes at the RHA where he discovered his passion for painting. He traveled to Dusseldorf to pursue his study fu...

A landscape, interior, portrait and still life painter who was originally born in Enniskillen Co. Fermanagh. Initially Gore studied medicine at Trinity College Dublin but abandoned his studies in 1901 for painting. He studied at the Slade school in London under the guidance of Henry Tonks and then ...

Born in Dublin, William John Leech studied at the Metropolitan School of Art and later at the RHA School under Walter Osborne and at the Academie Julian in Paris. From 1903 until 1917 Leech lived mainly in Concarneau in Brittany, but visited Dublin regularly and continued to exhibit annually at the ...

William Percy French became known as one of Ireland's foremost songwriters and entertainers. Thanks to the late Oliver Nulty, French has become recognised for his watercolour paintings as well. Nulty dedicated his career to promoting the works of French when he opened his gallery in 1968. A compreh...

Willie Cunningham was born in 1946 and grew up in Crossgar, County Down. Beyond the arts, Willie has also pursued a career in religious ministry and has lead services at the Elkana Christian Fellowship Church in Carryduff, outside Belfast for over 20 years. He believes "The work of man has to be in ...

Willy Rizzo was born in Naples in 1928. He started his career as a photographer in Paris in the 1940s. He made a name for himself by doing portrait photographs of fashion personalities and movie stars.  In 1968 he moved to Rome and this was the beginning of his engagement with furniture design. Hi...