Remarks by President Mary McAleese at the Opening of the Hughie O’Donoghue Exhibition
Remarks by President Mary McAleese at the Opening of the Hughie O’Donoghue Exhibition at the RHA Gallery on 7 January 1999
I would like to begin by taking this opportunity to wish you all a peaceful and happy New Year. I am delighted to have been invited here to open this important exhibition by Hughie O’Donoghue – some of whose work I was privileged to see and was overwhelmed by in Liverpool’s Walker Gallery only a few weeks ago.
The theme of this exhibition is “The Passion Series”, a subject we associate more often with Easter. Yet it is equally appropriate to the beginning of the New Year. The focus of the exhibition, as with the Passion itself, is not just on death, but also on rebirth and new beginnings.
It is an extraordinary series of paintings, drawings and graphics, part of an on-going body of work that commenced more than twelve years ago. Hughie O'Donoghue has taken a traditional theme but treated it in a very modern way. He draws on our cultural heritage, looking back to the tradition of figure painting in the History of Art, but giving it a new and dynamic focus.
In Ireland, we have always been renowned as wordsmiths. Our playwrights, poets and authors have drawn worldwide acclaim. Too often, visual art has been the poor relation. I believe this is starting to change. For painting is in many ways the most accessible of art forms. It is an international language through which everyone, regardless of culture, language or education, can bring their own experience and draw their own personal meaning.
Hughie himself once said of the Old Masters:
“good art has the possibility of reaching over, reaching across boundaries to ordinary people….great art offers many ways in, it is accessible, it is not elitist.”
I am sure he is too modest to put himself in the same category as Rembrandt, but the principle applies equally to his own work.
This is a great opportunity for the Irish people to experience the work of an exceptionally gifted artist who has exhibited widely in Europe and the UK and who has been described as “one of the most significant painters working in Britain and Ireland”.
I think it was George Bernard Shaw who said:
“the true artist will let his wife starve, his children go barefoot, his mother drudge for a living at seventy, sooner than work at anything but his art.”
I am sure that Hughie’s wife, Clare, and his children, Matthew, Katie and Vincent are relieved that this hasn’t been necessary, not least thanks to the generosity of Hughie’s American Patron, Craig Baker, who commissioned these art works. Indeed we will all benefit from Craig Baker’s kindness, for I understand he has given this body of work on loan to the State, until 2012. Unfortunately, he can’t be with us here this evening, so I would like to extend my warmest thanks to him back in the United States for loaning us these works, many of which were previously exhibited at in London and Munich. Not for the first time are these links between Ireland and America a source of generosity, mutual pride and an opportunity to grow in friendship.
We are particularly fortunate that Hughie O’Donoghue has chosen to make his home with us in Ireland, since 1995. He now lives just outside Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny. Of course, Hughie is no stranger to Ireland, having been born in Manchester of Irish parents, he spent many summer holidays as a child in the west of Ireland. His work first came to prominence in Ireland during the Kilkenny Arts Week in 1991 and I have no doubt that this exhibition will serve to bring the pleasure of his work to countless more people throughout the country.
It is now my great pleasure to declare this exhibition open.