1 March 2014: National Gallery of Ireland Study Day: War Artists

Left to right: Keith Jeffery (QUB), Sean Rainbird (NGI), Kathleen Palmer (IWM), Jimmy Deenihan TD, Brendan Rooney (NGI), Thomas Bartlett (University of Aberdeen) at the NGI Study Day.

On Saturday 1 March 2014 the National Gallery of Ireland hosted a ‘study day’ on ‘War Artists’. By focusing on World War I, this will reflects an era of radical change in both art and history. The range of talented artists that captured the people and events involved in the war included Paul Nash, Eric Kennington, William Orpen, Max Beckmann and Käthe Kollwitz. The artists Laura Knight, Faith Farr, Cecily Browne and Doris Zinkeisen proved that women could also present the most disconcerting aspects of war. The continuing presence of war has led to different kinds of artwork, including the rise of photo-journalism, and images delivered daily on television screens from conflict regions.

The study day involved lectures and readings by contemporary poets, artists journalists and historians, such as Bryan Dobson (RTÉ), Gerald Dawe (Trinity College Dublin), Keith Jeffery (Queen’s University Belfast), John Horne (Trinity College Dublin), Paula Meehan, and Kathleen Palmer (Imperial War Museum).

For details of the study day, click here.

From History Ireland: Keith Jeffery on Irish artists of the First World War.