Art and Society in Twentieth-Century Ireland
NYU, Summer 1998, Professor Lucy Oakley

Course Requirements     Required Reading      Syllabus     Recommended Reading

Long overshadowed by Ireland's rich literary tradition, the history of Irish art has only recently emerged into the spotlight of international scholarly and critical attention. This introductory undergraduate lecture course is offered in conjunction with three concurrent exhibitions of Irish art in New York City, which we will examine firsthand in gallery visits: "When Time Began to Rant and Rage: Figurative Painting from Twentieth-Century Ireland," which opens May 25 at NYU's Grey Art Gallery; "A Measured Quietude," featuring mostly abstract works on paper by contemporary Irish artists, on view from June 23 at the nearby Drawing Center in SoHo, and "0044," whose title comes from the international dialing code for telephone calls from Dublin to London, and which features works by twenty young Irish artists who live and work in the London area; it will be on view beginning June 20 at P.S. 1 Center for Contemporary Art in Long Island City, Queens. All three exhibitions focus on two vital issues, which also serve as underlying themes for the course: the development of a distinctly Irish identity in the visual arts and its relationship to the growth of Irish nationalisms, and the impact of Irish artists' involvement in international art movements. After briefly exploring Ireland's rich heritage of Celtic art, along with the late-nineteenth-century Celtic Revival, we will trace twentieth-century Irish art from turn-of-the-century Impressionism through Post-Impressionism, Social Realism, Expressionism, Modernist abstraction, and Surrealism to postmodern abstraction and conceptual art. Special attention will be paid to artists' negotiations of formal concerns as interwoven with issues of nationalism, colonialism, class ideology, and gender identity.

Course Requirements

In addition to attendance at class lectures and gallery visits, and required readings listed in the syllabus, course requirements will include one short (3- to 5-page) paper comparing and contrasting two works of art in the Grey Art Gallery's exhibition, and two examinations: a midterm and a final, both comprising brief slide identifications and comparative essays.

Required Reading:

Steward, James Christen, ed. When Time Began to Rant and Rage: Figurative Painting from Twentieth-Century Ireland. Berkeley: Berkeley Art Museum, and London: Merrell Holberton, 1998. Catalogue of the exhibition at the Grey Art Gallery, with contributions by various scholars.

Recommended Reading

The following surveys provide useful historical, theoretical, and critical perspectives.

Arnold, Bruce. Irish Art: A Concise History. Rev. ed. London: Thames and Hudson, 1977.

Crookshank, Anne, and The Knight of Glin [Desmond Fitzgerald]. The Painters of Ireland, c. 1660–1920. London: Barrie and Jenkins, 1978.

Cullen, Fintan. Visual Politics: The Representation of Ireland, 1750–1930. Cork: Cork University Press, 1997

Fallon, Brian. Irish Art, 1830–1990. Belfast: Appletree Press, 1994.

Harbison, Peter, Homan Potterton, and Jeanne Sheehy. Irish Art and Architecture from Prehistory to the Present. London: Thames and Hudson, 1978 (paperback 1993).

Kennedy, S.B. Irish Art and Modernism, 1880–1950. Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, Queen's University, 1991.

Kennedy, Brian P. Irish Painting. Dublin: Town House, 1993.

Mayes, Elizabeth, Jenni Rogers, and Wanda Ryan-Smolin, eds. Irish Women Artists from the Eighteenth Century to the Present Day. Dublin: National Gallery of Ireland, Douglas Hyde Gallery, and Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, 1987.

Sheehy, Jeanne. The Rediscovery of Ireland's Past: The Celtic Revival, 1830–1930. London: Thames and Hudson, 1980.

Walker, Dorothy. Modern Art in Ireland. Dublin: Lilliput Press, 1997.

Syllabus with Required Reading Assignments

Wk 1: Two 3-1/2 hour lecture classes

Wks 2–5:  Two 3-1/2 hour lecture classes combined with gallery visits

Wk 6:  Final Exam and one 3-1/2 hour class/gallery visit

Session 2, June 23: Postmodern Questions in Contemporary Irish Art: Conceptualism, Feminism, and the Body (Brian O'Doherty, Sean Scully, Kathy Prendergast, Dorothy Cross, Shane Cullen). Read Steward, pp. 112–22.