MARTIN MURRAY,
Sir - It is shocking that someone could be so offended as Micheál Ó Nualláin by the academic descriptions of the "American Beauty" exhibition at the National Gallery.
The title speaks for itself: the art and artists are American. For someone to express outrage that the Irish "connection" is not announced, exploited, and glorified is narcissistic and provincial.
That some of the subject matter is Irish or that the heredity of an artist is Irish does not make the art "Irish art", nor does it necessitate the National Gallery to falsely allude to it as an Irish achievement or tire us with excessive information pertaining to the time artists spent in Ireland.
I applaud the National Gallery for not engaging in this national pastime: the smug assumption that no matter how circuitous the path, so many achievements of other cultures (particularly American) can ultimately be traced back and credited to the Irish.
- Yours, etc.,
MARTIN MURRAY, San Francisco, USA.
Sir, - As Micheál Ó Nualláin says, much of Robert Henri's most important work was done in Achill and it is generally unknown that one of America's foremost painters of the 20th century painted a whole generation of the children of Dooagh. These portraits were crated at the end of each season (by my grandfather and his nephew) and shipped to the United States.
Bennard B. Pearlman's Book Robert Henri, his Life and Art (Dover Publications 1991) gives a comprehensive list of the museums throughout America where Henri's works may be seen, including his famous portraits of Johnny Commins and his wife Biddy - "Himself" and "Herself" (1913) in the Arts Institute, Chicago.
It is an opportunity for us in Achill to salute the memory of Robert Henri, just 73 years after his death (New York, July 12th, 1929). - Yours, etc.,
T.P. McNAMARA, Keel, Achill Island, Co Mayo.