Collected works: National Gallery acquisitions set to go on public display

MAJOR WORKS by international painters Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Vincent van Gogh and JMW Turner, as well as Irish artists including…

MAJOR WORKS by international painters Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Vincent van Gogh and JMW Turner, as well as Irish artists including Jack B Yeats, Louis le Brocquy and John Lavery, which have been acquired by the National Gallery of Ireland, will go on display this month.

The paintings have been either bought, gifted or acquired through tax incentives. They reflect an outstanding decade for a gallery which benefited from the Celtic Tiger years.

Taking Stock: Acquisitions 2000-2010 will bring together more than 100 paintings, prints and drawings. It includes the first Italian masterpiece purchased by Sir Denis Mahon in 1934, Guercino’s Jacob Blessing the Sons of Joseph (1620), one of eight Baroque canvases gifted by the scholar.

Gallery director Raymond Keaveney said it had been gifted many works of art that the State could never have afforded.

Ronan McGreevy

Ronan McGreevy

Ronan McGreevy is a news reporter with The Irish Times