On a blustery, rainy, and truly miserable Wednesday night, the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art provided a welcome and elegant refuge for an unusual exhibition entitled Knot. Artist Alice Maher was invited to curate a show from the gallery's permanent collection of works on paper. As well as the 39 artists represented, Maher herself created four original charcoal drawings of ornate coils of hair which reflected the inspirational nature of the collected works. These were in direct response to two works in particular - Keith Henderson's painting Sleep and Paul Klee's painting Anima errante. The artists, gathered in knots of their own, included the sculptor and lover of hares, Barry Flanagan, chatting to Louise Ronaine; artists Janet Mullarney, Vivienne Roche and Campbell Bruce. Vera Kreilkamp, professor of Celtic Studies and Adele Dalsiner, co-director of Irish Studies at Boston College were also there; Dalsiner was one of four people who received an honorary degree from the NUI at Dublin Castle on Thursday along with Peter Ustinov, former chief justice Tom O'Higgins and president of DCU, Danny O'Hare. Film censor Sheamus Smith had a cocktail party in the Merrion Hotel on Wednesday night for Sir Peter along with the three other new doctors. This marks Ustinov's 14th honorary degree, a bit of a habit, really. Seamus Heaney signed a copy of his Collected Poems for the actor, while Sheamus Smith remembered having lunch with Ustinov almost 20 years ago at Restaurant na Mara in Dun Laoghaire, where he stayed in costume - he was dressed as the King of England arriving in Kingstown.
Maura Quinn of Unicef was there, clearly delighted that she had captured the premiere on July 15th of the new Star Wars film, The Phantom Menace, to boost her fund-raising efforts, aided of course by one of its stars, Liam Neeson, who is a long-time supporter of the charity.