REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE ON THE OFFICIAL OPENING OF THE HUGH LANE 100 YEARS EXHIBITION
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE ON THE OFFICIAL OPENING OF THE HUGH LANE 100 YEARS EXHIBITION DUBLIN CITY GALLERY, PARNELL SQUARE
A Ard Mhéara, A Chairde uilig, Tá an áthas orm bheith i bhur measc ar an ocáid taitneamhach seo. Míle bhuíochas díbh as an gcuireadh agus an fáilte a thug sibh dom. Tá áthas orm chomh maith bheith anseo sa suíomh iontach seo.
A very happy hundredth birthday and congratulations to the management, staff and friends of the Gallery, on a century of very special service to the people of Dublin and the city’s many visitors and to the wonderful collections that are in your care. There is clearly going to be a Hugh Lane thread running through 2008 for me, for only last month, I found myself in Clonmell House on Harcourt Street, the original home of the Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, which is how the elegantly and sympathetically restored home of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants in Ireland. Quite a change!
This evening we celebrate the establishment, through Hugh Lane’s bequest, of one of the oldest, if not the very oldest, modern art gallery in the world, a formidable achievement by any standards and one which went hand in hand with the more talked about Irish Literary Revival of the time. JM Synge wrote in the Guardian at the time of “the strange thrill” he got “to turn in from Harcourt Street ... to find myself among Monets and Manets and Renoirs”. Le Figaro proclaimed the gallery “a museum envied by the most prosperous states and the proudest cities.”
We can only imagine the pride and confidence it generated and the encouragement to those trying to make their living from art. The establishment of this gallery was without a doubt one of the most important cultural events in these islands and stands even in these more prosperous times as a testimony to the power of philanthropy. Hugh Lane’s bequest made at the age of 32 was an act of generosity that has grown in its reach every year since and it is of course exactly right that for the first time since 1913, in this centenary year, the entire Lane bequest is under one roof.
One of the most celebrated aspects of Hugh Lane’s bequest has been the sharing of the paintings between the National Gallery in London and the Hugh Lane Gallery. This painting-sharing agreement is now almost fifty years old. It took the power-sharing agreement a bit longer to work out but happily both are signs of the spirit of warm collegiality and partnership that flourishes today between Ireland and Great Britain. I am delighted that we are joined by Christopher Riopelle from the National Gallery in London this evening. It was Yeats who invited us to this Gallery in his famous lines on friendship:
“Come to this hallowed place
Where my friends’ portraits hang and look thereon;
Ireland’s history in their lineaments trace;
Think where man’s glory most begins and ends
And say my glory was I had such friends.”
This gallery has been fortunate in its friends, from Lane himself, that great champion of Irish art at home and abroad, to its contemporary team under the chairmanship of Ann Reihill. Together they have brought the Gallery into an exciting new era with its new wing, its acquisition of Francis Bacon’s studio and contemporary masterpieces by Philip Guston and Ellsworth Kelly and, of course, its Sean Scully room, a testimony to the genius and generosity of that famous Rotunda baby, Sean Scully himself.
It was good to see the outgoing Chairman recognised recently by The Lord Mayor’s Awards. I’d like to say a special thank you to Ann, for her work, and to Barbara Dawson, the Director, for the invitation to participate in tonight’s event. To all those whose collaboration and hard work has brought the Hugh Lane Collection in its entirety to its Dublin home, a resounding thanks on behalf of all of those to whom this living gift will in another century, another millennium, bring renewed delight and joy.
To all who carry forward Hugh Lane’s bold dream and visionary generosity, on behalf of a nation whose cultural life is enriched and enlivened by your work, I thank you.
Go raibh maith agaibh go léir.