In search of a modern Ireland – the Society of Dublin Painters

By Shannon Callahan

On 5 August 1920, a new collective of Irish artists opened their first exhibition at 7 St. Stephen’s Green. The Society of Dublin Painters was comprised of Ireland’s most prominent artists, and this group sought to bring modernism to Ireland, hosting exhibitions until the 1950s. The society’s first show lasted from 5 August – 1 September, 1920. Reviews of the first exhibition were positive. Excited by the idea of a new painting body, the Irish Times stated:

‘It is pleasing to think, in these disturbed days, that the whole activity of Irish life is not wasted in the arid field of politics. The exhibition of paintings that was opened yesterday at the St. Stephen’s Green Gallery, Dublin, is full of hope and courage, full of promise and accomplishment. The ceaseless rain may endanger our crops; human folly may make our political future dark; but the artists still go on, reaping the immortal harvest, building up to the invisible kingdom.’

Although the Irish Times situated the society’s exhibition in relation to current events, the Freeman’s Journal recognised a different purpose for the Dublin Painters. It declared that the society existed ‘less to preach theories than to paint pictures.’ At the dawn of Irish independence, there was a desire to establish an Irish school of painting that was dedicated to the avant-garde, providing artists with the freedom to create without the restrictions of academic painting that had been prevalent in Ireland up until this point. The Dublin Painters wanted desperately to move Ireland’s art away from traditional academic painting that focused on realism and accuracy to the subject matter. Other countries had experienced impressionism and other avant-garde movements, but Ireland had not yet welcomed new styles into painting. All of the artists involved had studied and worked abroad throughout their careers and were influenced greatly by the artists who started modern art movements like cubism and fauvism. Paul Henry, for example, believed that this education abroad helped them to ‘cast aside all the theories and prejudices of the Schools and [to look] at nature as if for the first time, and above all [to see] it with emotion.’

The founders of the Society of Dublin did not mandate style like, say, the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA). The RHA served as a school for the education of professional artists and favoured landscape and portraiture. At the time, there were few venues for artists to exhibit their work, and the RHA had restrictive criteria for submitted artwork. In contrast, the Dublin Painters were free to work independently and in whatever style they chose. The mission of this group was not to create a unified art movement, but rather to step away from tradition in Irish art and bring modernism to the public. Exhibitions were hosted in the spring and autumn of each year, and artists were able to host solo shows in the studio once a year. There was only a limit to the number of paintings one could submit. The artists were free to submit their work to other exhibitions, including the yearly RHA show, and many would go on to be members of other organisations as well, like the White Stag Group and Irish Exhibition of Living Art. 

Though the members were not required to exhibit exclusively with Dublin Painters, the biannual expositions at 7 St. Stephen’s Green allowed artists to freely express themselves. Number 7 had a history of hosting other artists, including John Butler Yeats, and it was neighboured by the RHA at 6 St. Stephen’s Green. This area was therefore incredibly important for artists at the time. 

Unfortunately, the original meeting minutes no longer exist, so there are conflicting accounts of who founded the Society of Dublin Painters. What we do know is that Jack B. Yeats, Clare Marsh, Paul Henry, Grace Henry, Mary Swanzy, E.M. O’Rourke Dickey, Letitia Hamilton and James Sleator all participated in the first exposition and are likely to have been its first associates. Harry Clarke was also a founding member, though he did not participate in that seminal show. Yeats, Marsh, and Paul Henry co-signed the initial lease on the 7 St. Stephen’s Green studio and exhibition space. Membership was limited to 10 members until 1932 when it increased to 12, and then in 1934 membership was capped at 18.

The Post Car by Jack B. Yeats displayed at the first exhibition. (Image: Adam's Auctioneers of Dublin)

Each founding member offered a unique artistic style and perspective to the Society. Jack B. Yeats, arguably Ireland’s most internationally recognised artist, was born in London, but raised in Sligo. His work has been interpreted as helping create a sense of ‘real’ Ireland, using his paintings to address larger narratives of national suffering through more intimate scenes. For example, after British soldiers opened fire on civilians in Dublin in 1914, Yeats created Bachelor’s Walk – In Memory, sketching the site of the event and capturing a woman placing flowers at the site where one of the victims was shot. Yeats had already made a name for himself by the time of the first Dublin Painters show and his works he contributed to it were well received, the Freeman’s Journal lauding them for their apparent ‘mystery and charm’. Yeats exhibited with the Dublin Painters until 1923.

Clare Marsh exhibited in every show between 1920 and 1923, when she died suddenly from appendicitis. In the first show, she exhibited several landscapes, as well as a portrait of a child. She had shared a studio with Mary Swanzy and co-exhibited with her friend at 7 St. Stephen’s Green. Owing to her early death, her work has not been widely recognised.

Paul Henry helped to create the Society of Dublin Painters after having participated in the creation of a similar group in London several years earlier. In the first exhibition, Henry showed three paintings. Potato Digger was a favourite of the Irish Times which presciently observed: ‘Strong in drawing and rich in colour, this is surely a painting which is destined for one of our permanent collections.’ The Freeman’s Journal lavished similar praise upon another creation, A Western Village: ‘If Ireland valued pictures as she ought to do’, the paper observed, ‘[this] would be secured as a national possession.’ Paul and Grace Henry lived on Achill Island from 1910 to 1919 and his landscapes of Connacht were later utilised by the Irish Free State for promotional purposes as part of its tourism literature. Henry would exhibit off and on with the Dublin Painters throughout the 1930s.

More experimental than her husband was Grace Henry. ‘Mrs. Grace Henry, in her three pictures, proves her fine sensitiveness and her wonderfully subtle sense of colour.’ She was influenced by the modernists in Paris, where she had studied in the early 1900s. Grace, the Freeman’s Journal observed, was not dedicated to ‘orthodox prettiness’, but rather focused on shape and colour. Like Paul, however, her work also focused on the west of Ireland. Grace remained associated with the Dublin Painters throughout its lifespan and exhibited regularly until about 1923, when she returned to Paris. Thereafter, her contributions were more sporadic, though she would continue to exhibit with the Dublin Painters until the 1950s.

Mary Swanzy was noted in the first exhibition for being similar in style to E.M. O’Rorke Dickey. Like many of the founding members of the society, Swanzy had studied in Paris, but she also studied under John Butler Yeats, father of Jack B. Yeats. He was a famous Irish portraitist, and he influenced Swanzy in her early years. Swanzy participated in exhibitions for two years and then moved away from Ireland, travelling to Hawaii and Samoa.

The Connoisseur (Grace Henry) by Mary Swanzy. (Image: Adam's Auctioneers of Dublin)

Although not as widely remembered by contemporary audiences, E.M. O’Rorke Dickey seemed to have the most promise in this first exhibition. Described by the Freeman’s Journal as being the ‘most consciously modern’ of the exhibitors, Dickey moved to England in 1924, after which he lost his connection to the Dublin Painters.

Letitia Hamilton was commended by the Freeman’s Journal for being able to ‘interpret with real insight.’ She participated in many Irish art groups throughout her career, including the RHA, Watercolour Society of Dublin and the Scottish Society of Women Artists. Her style was influenced by art nouveau, with many abstract qualities in her choice of colour and form. Along with her sister, Eva, Hamilton travelled throughout Europe during the 1920s and 1930s, yet retained a strong association with the Dublin Painters.

James Sleator’s links to the Society are more fragile. One major survey of Art and Architecture of Ireland in the twentieth century, published by the Royal Irish Academy, identifies Sleator as a founding member, but claims that he left the group shortly after the first show. In contrast, Paul Henry’s biographer, S.B. Kennedy, lists Sleator as a participant in the first show though not as a founding member. Both accounts concur that Sleator left the group after the first exhibition due to artistic differences. Sleator, who was trained by the famous Irish artist, William Orpen, possessed a more traditional style and the paintings he showcased at the inaugural exhibition met with a less than rapturous response. ‘To do things well’, one newspaper review commented, ‘it is not sufficient enough to be able to do them easily.’ Sleator would progress to become president of the RHA, continuing the traditional style that the Dublin Painters eagerly sought to break with.

James M. Willcox, Sir Frederic Moore and Countess Soumarokow Elston also participated in the first exhibition but do not seem to have been members of the Society. Surviving catalogues and newspaper reviews do not mention these artists after the first exhibition. Throughout the lifespan of the Dublin Painters, most of Ireland’s most prominent artists would, at some point or other, showcase their work, among them Mainie Jellett, Evie Hone and Charles Lamb. Indeed, the first cubist-inspired paintings presented in Ireland were painted by Mainie Jellett and shown at the Dublin Painters show in 1923.

But almost as striking as those artists whose work was represented in the shows of the Society were those were absent. Missing, for instance, was the work of Seán Keating. He, like Sleator, was trained by Orpen and followed a more traditional approach to painting, preferring to adhere to the RHA’s guidelines for painting over modernism. Unlike Sleator, however, Keating would go on to criticise all such institutions, arguing that painting groups should be disbanded after a period of 25 years in order to prevent a certain staleness or stubbornness in style from taking root. As with Paul Henry, Keating’s work became closely entwined with Irish nationalism, though the two artists differed in their style and presentation of that nationalism. Where Henry’s work focussed on the distinctiveness of a certain Irish landscape, Keating sought to represent the revolutionary struggle for independence. 

The legacy of the Dublin Painters resides in the opportunities it afforded Irish artists beyond the limitations of academic painting. Paul Henry himself wrote about the desire to create an impressionable school of art in Ireland. In his autobiography, Further Reminiscences, he stated:

‘I asked myself why it was that Ireland, with her rich heritage of culture, a country which had kept alive the tradition of learning through the dark ages, had never thrown up a painter of outstanding distinction.’ 

By the time the Irish Exhibition of Living Art was staged by the National College of Art on Dublin’s Kildare Street in 1943, the Society of Dublin Painters had lost its status as a premiere representation of the avant-garde. Nevertheless, the group had succeeded in delivering two of its principal goals: bringing greater public recognition of modernism to Ireland and providing an alternative outlet to the RHA. The work of Henry and Yeats’ would of course become synonymous with Irish nationalism in the new Free State, their work being used to visualise the nation in the making and a particular idea of Irishness. In addition, Grace Henry, Mary Swanzy, Letitia Hamilton and Clare Marsh were part of a wider women’s movement in Irish art. These women and others, like Mainie Jellett and Evie Hone, would push for modernism in Irish art and were at once incredibly prolific and experimental. Their unwavering desire to challenge tradition helped groups like the Society of Dublin Painters to succeed and paved the way for new groups in the future. These artists have become the most celebrated in Ireland, working together towards a similar goal while allowing for individual style.

Bibliography
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Henry, Paul. An Irish Portrait : The Autobiography of Paul Henry. London: Batsford, 1988.
Henry, Paul, and Arts Council of Northern Ireland. Further Reminiscences. Belfast: Blackstaff Press : Arts Council of Northern Ireland, 1973.
Kennedy, S. B., and Paul Henry. Paul Henry. New Haven, CT ; London: Yale University Press, 2000.
Kennedy, S. B., and Queen's University of Belfast. Irish Art and Modernism 1880-1950. Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 1991.
Marshall, Catherine, Peter Murray, and Andrew Carpenter. Art and Architecture of Ireland. Volume V, Twentieth Century. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy,, 2015.
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Shannon Callahan interned with Century Ireland while completing her MPhil in Public History and Cultural Heritage at TCD. Her focus is in Art History, with a particular interest in underrepresented narratives in late 19th and early 20th Century European art movements. Shannon can be contacted at [email protected]