Irish Art Galleries
Guide to Museums and Gallery Venues in Ireland
Visual Arts Information

Irish Art Galleries

Visual art in Ireland is blessed with a wide range of art venues, including major museums devoted to the history of Irish art, fine art libraries, bijou museums, and municipal collections of art, as well as numerous exciting private art galleries, specializing in traditional Irish art, as well as contemporary paintings by newly emerging artists. The vast majority may not be of the same size as the Uffizi in Florence, the Hermitage in St Petersburg, the Musee D'Orsay or the Louvre, but the range of painting and sculpture displayed includes works by the Old Masters, such as Velazquez, Goya, Caravaggio, Vermeer, Titian, Pieter Brueghel the Younger, Rembrandt, Rubens, Nicolas Poussin, Thomas Gainsborough, Sir Joshua Reynolds and Van Dyck; famous moderns like JMW Turner, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso and Henry Moore, as well as world famous Irish artists and Cork artists like James Barry, Paul Henry, Harry Clarke, Louis le Brocquy, Roderic O'Conor, Sean Scully, and Jack B. Yeats.

I Took Your Advice, by Irish artist
Clea Van der Grijn.

Francis Bacon's reconstructed Reece Mews studio is viewable at the Hugh Lane Dublin City Gallery, while the incomparable illuminated manuscript, the Book of Kells, is on display in the library of Trinity College Dublin.

National Arts Museums

National Gallery of Ireland (NGI)
National Museum of Ireland (NMI)
Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA)
Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane
Chester Beatty Library
Trinity College Dublin Library
Gallery of Photography
RHA Gallagher Gallery
National Self-Portrait Collection of Ireland (Limerick)
The Hunt Museum (Limerick)

Regional Art Galleries

Crawford Art Gallery (Cork)
Lewis Glucksman Gallery (Cork)
Lavit Gallery (Cork)
West Cork Arts Centre
Limerick City Museum and Gallery of Art
Waterford Municipal Art Gallery
Ulster Museum (Fine Arts Collection)

Private Art Galleries

As well as traditional fine art displays of Irish painting and Irish sculpture, private venues sometimes present contemporary shows featuring fine art photography, assemblage, installation, and video art, as well as ceramics and stained glass. Note also, that many private galleries offer a number of special consulting services to art-collectors, architects and designers. These include site visits, art packages to suit most art-buyers artistic and investment priorities, the facility of ordering art forms across Ireland, and in-house framing services. For more information, please use the resources listed below.

Private Art Galleries in Dublin

Other Galleries in Ireland

Irish Art Auctioneers

Regular auctions of fine art painting and sculpture, by international as well as Irish artists, are held throughout the year in Dublin, Galway, Cork and Belfast. Among the most eminent art auctioneers are Adams, de Veres and Whytes (all Dublin), Loughlin Bowe (Kilkenny) and John Ross & Co (Belfast). Whether you are a private collector or corporate buyer, their busy salesrooms are well worth a visit to absorb the latest trends in the Irish art market.

COMING SOON....
Our Guide to the World's Top Art Museums!

Starting July 2008, we shall be launching our information channel on the major art museums, taking a close look at their permanent collections and entry details. Included in this wide-ranging survey, will be the following 20 fine arts venues:

State Hermitage, St. Petersburg;
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence;
Musee du Louvre, Paris;
Musee d'Orsay, Paris;
Museo del Prado, Madrid;
National Gallery, London;
Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest;
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam;
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna;
Tate Collection, London;
Neue Pinakothek, Munich;
Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp;
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest;
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York;
Victoria & Albert Museum, London;
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston;
Graflich Lambergsche Gemahlde-Gallerie, Vienna;
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC;
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland;
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis;

Did You Know...?

- The first museum to open to the public was the British Museum in 1759.
- The first publicly owned museum in Europe was the Uffizi Gallery in 1765.
- The first art museum was the Hermitage in St. Petersburg (1764).
- The Musee Louvre in Paris, was established in 1793.

• For more information about painting and sculpture in Ireland, see: Guide to Irish Art.

• How to Update This Mini Review of Irish Art Galleries.

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