On The Town:The work of artist Anne Maddenwill be a leading attraction in the programme of events planned for the Irish Museum of Modern Art (Imma) this year. A retrospective show of her paintings from her twenties up to the present day, comprising some 60 works, will be on view at Imma for three months.
Everything, apart from the "huge crucifixions" which she did when she was in art college and which she destroyed, will be on view, she said.
"The Anne Madden exhibition is a very complete exhibition, which will also present some amazing new works, among the best she has ever done, and which have not yet been exhibited. She has also agreed to give the winter lecture of 2007," said Enrique Juncosa, director of Imma.
"I'm looking forward to Anne's show," said artist Jacqueline Stanley, who was there with her husband, Campbell Bruce.
Other attractions will be the work of artists Alex Katz, Georgia O'Keeffe, Lucian Freud, Joan Miró and Alexander Calder.
"It's great to see Lucian Freud coming here," said artist Kenneth Donfield, of the National College of Art and Design. "He's such a substantial figurative painter."
Artists and brothers Shaneand Colm McConnell, from Howth, Co Dublin, were looking forward to seeing the work of American artists Georgia O'Keeffe and Alex Katz as well as that of the British painter, Lucian Freud.
"Georgia O'Keeffe is one of the best flower painters ever," said Shane. "She's famous for painting flowers up really, really close, from a bee's perspective."
The work of Lucian Freud "is going to be a sensation, a huge crowd-puller", said artist and Imma board member Gerard Mannix Flynn. "The fact that Imma is a very young institution means that there are so many possibilities.
It's become the primary museum in the country."
Those at the Imma 2007 programme launch included Ciarán Bennett, president of the International Assocation of Art Critics; Peter Fitzgerald, editor of Circa; Stephanie McBride, chair of the board of the Gallery of Photography; and Imma board members Rosemarie Asheand Áine O'Driscoll.