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Record: 1 A SAUNTER ROUND SOME GALLERIES. Guide to the Arts: Cv Journal, May1991, Vol. 4 Issue 2, p6-6, 1/2p, 1 Black and White Photograph Abstract: The article offers information on the various art galleries in Dublin, Ireland. Dublin's art galleries fall into two groups. The first is located immediately to the north of Trinity College and consists of museums and the more established commercial galleries; the second, newer group is a lively assemblage of artists' studios and galleries specializing in contemporary art. The Tom Caldwell gallery represents the older artists like Patrick Collins as well as younger artists like Jill Nunn.; (AN 22523020) Database: Hobbies & Crafts Reference Center A SAUNTER ROUND SOME DUBLIN GALLERIES

Dublin's art galleries conveniently fall into two groups. The first is located immediately to the north of Trinity College and consists of museums and the more established commercial galleries; the second, newer group is a lively assemblage of artists' studios and galleries specialising in contemporary art, dotted along the side streets of the Liffey quays immediately west of O'Connell Bridge. In addition, there are the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery fifteen minutes walk north of O'Connell Bridge and the new Museum of Modern Art in outlaying Kilmainham -- both magnificent and well-worth visiting, but both as yet cultural islands awaiting the development of arti-pelagoes around them, so it can be a long walk to their front doors. Here, therefore, is my easy walking tour of the first of these groups, starting at the Tom Caldwell Gallery and finishing at the Craft Council's HQ Gallery behind Grafton Street.

Occupying the basement of 15 Upper Fitzwilliam Street, the Caldwell represents older artists Patrick Collins, Jack Cudworth and Neil Shawcross, as well as younger artists such as Jill Nunn, Eithne Carr and Edward Kennedy. You may also acquire one of the novelist J. P. Donleavy's quirky little paintings here. Struggle up the steps from the basement, turn right and proceed towards 11 Upper Mount Street, braving the traffic at Baggol Street en route, to the Rubicon Gallery, again at basement level. The Rubicon is managed by a friendly person named Kelleher whose advice is intelligent and ought to be listened to. Amongst the artists she represents are Michael Kane, Lorcan Walshe and Nick Miller who, between them, could tell you all there is to know about angst. The Taoiseach (Prime Minister) opened Kane's recent exhibition at the Rubicon and spoke eloquently, without the aid of notes, for over half an hour on the merits of angst-driven artists in Dublin. At Lorcan Walshe's show last March, one collector bought a suite of twelve drawings, including one depicting Charlotte Rampling and some unusual animals, which I hope she does not ever see. Other Rubicon artists are Eamonn Coleman, Margaret MacNamidhe, Ronnie Hughes (currently on a PSI scholarship in New York) and Margaret Morrison (currently studying in Illinois.

Leave the Rubicon, turn right and if you walk undeviatingly you will meet the railings which bound the wonderfully renovated National Gallery, the Natural History Museum and the National Museum. You will have skirted Morrison Square, which is Georgian and fine and intact. If you are adventurous, you may have sidestepped into the square itself which contains some interesting sculptures dotted about the bushes. You could spend the rest of the day happily in the National Gallery, today a far cry from the institution which, decades ago, was recommended to homesick Texans for its wide-open, empty spaces. Or, if the rain has continued to hold off, on leaving the National Gallery turn right and set your sights on an unpreprossessing-looking redbrick box which terminates the street (Ely Place) and which hides one of the finest exhibition spaces in Europe. This is the Gallagher Gallery (which you have to repeat in full before they will let you in) and it is the setting of many of the more important exhibitions of Dublin's year's City of Culture.

From the RHA Gallagher Gallery it is but a short walk (turning right immediately after the Shelbourne Hotel) to the Oliver Dowling Gallery in Kildare Street, outpost of conceptual and minimal art. Here Willie Doherty, Mary Fitzgerald, Paul O'Keefe and T. J. Maher will beguile with clarity and style. Oliver Dowling has recently attracted neighbour the successful Taylor Galleries, late of Dawson Street. Many years ago, as the Dawson Gallery, it was presided over by the late, legendary Leo Smith. Smith's assistant, John Taylor, now heads the gallery with his brother Pat and its adventurous design means that you will have to negotiate at least one frowning architect to see the art on its four levels. Many of Ireland's foremost living artists are represented here, including Camille Souter, Conor Fallon, Patrick Scott, Cecily Brennan, Michael Farrell and Tony O'Malley. In addition the Gallery deals in the work of Nano Reid, Norah McGuinness, Mary Swanzy and other important 20th century Irish artists.

Leave the Taylor Galleries, turn left and left again into Molesworth Street. Across the road, the Gurry Gallery is the best place to buy 18th and 19th century Irish art; further along, the Pete Hogan Gallery sells breezy

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watercolours of Dublin but it is in Dawson Street, directly ahead, that is our next objective. The Kerlin, plate-glassed, ground level and opposite the Mansion House, showcases the more adventurous Irish artists such as Dorothy Cross, Elizabeth Magill and Gwen O'Dowd. If there were still an avant-garde in art, the Kerlin would be the place to find it. Kerlin artist John Kindness was another recent holder of the PSI scholarship in New York, which encourages artists from other countries to absorb some of the ambience in that city. Kindness absorbed the ambience more than somewhat and brought back to Ireland a collection of battered wings, hoods and doors from Yellow Cabs, which, suitably engraved with classical motifs, formed one of the most impressive Kerlin shows of recent months.

More of the same can be seen at the Arts Council-supported , tucked at ground level into Trinity College's nearly new Arts Building and best approached from the College's Nassau Street gate. Howard Hodgkin and Bruce Nauman are two of the luminaries who will be bringing some of the glamour of the international art world to Dublin in 1991, courtesy of the Douglas Hyde.

At this point in the perambulation, choices abound. Probably the best is to head towards Grafton Street (coffee in Bewley's, stained glass by Harry Clarke) on to the Crafts Council's HQ Gallery located at the very top of Powerscourt Town House, a shopping centre in the shell of the former town house of the Viscounts Powerscourt. It is ten minutes walk from the Douglas Hyde and brings you within striking distance of the second group of galleries, to be sought behind the Central Bank in Dame Street - but they are a saunter for another day.

Mary Farl Powers Histograph 22 1/2 x 30″ edition of 20, from a selection at the Graphic Studio Gallery in Cape Street, Dublin.

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by Boulevardier

'Boulevardier' is an arts administrator who, though not usually shy, prefers to stroll anonymously round the town.

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