It filled up like Noah's Ark, guests arriving two by two. No names were attached to the 200 canvases on the walls, each measuring 20 centimetres square, each on sale at €200. They were hung side by side, in parallel lines, running at eye-level along the wall of the Temple Bar Gallery and Studios, which was celebrating 20 years in existence.
Buyers, artists, friends and supporters came along to see the work and maybe pick up a bargain. Marian Lovett, director of the gallery and its 30 studios was "overwhelmed by the response". All the work was contributed free in order to kick-start the gallery and studios' fundraising campaign.
"There's a Shinnors over there," said a delighted Megan Arney, curator of the Lead White Gallery in Ballsbridge, pointing to a canvas by John Shinnors.
Aileen Corkery, visual arts curator of Temple Bar Properties, scanned the wall for Paddy Donnelly's canvas, the crowd pressing in all around. "This is an incredible idea, it's the most innovative idea I've seen," she said, as her search continued. Donnelly himself, she said, was in Berlin.
Art critic Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith was quickly able to pick out work by Willie McKeon, Sean Hillen, Padraig Timoney and Felim Egan.
The clue to finding the canvas by artist Brian Palm, husband of singer Mary Stokes, was to look for one that was "urban".
Work by Oliver Whelan, chair of Circa, the quarterly art magazine, also featured. "It's a painting with stripes of grey running across it," he offered. He'll be contributing to a conference on 'Digital Surface' at the Tate Gallery in June next year. Fellow artist Andrew Folan, meanwhile, said that he'd been invited to show in the Egyptian Triennale in Giza, Egypt next year.
Frank Carty has a show coming up in the Kevin Kavanagh Gallery next June, while Remco De Fouw was preparing for his opening there the next night. His show is called Amnesiac Dreams.
Mike Murphy came along to open the 20-20 show. "Raise a glass to Charlie McCreevy, who left the artist's tax exemption untouched," he said. There were sighs of relief all round.
Enjoying the speeches and looking more like wealthy investors than paint-spattered artists were Joe Moran and Eamonn O'Doherty, the man behind Dublin's much-loved "floozie in the jacuzzi", who used to reside in O'Connell Street. Sean Hillen was also in attendance. The 20-20 show remains on view today until 6 p.m.