CHAPTER VI A RT
ÁRAS
AN
UACHTARÁIN
IN
Á RAS
UACHTARÁIN
∑ AN
WAS BUILT IN THE MID-18TH CENTURY.
MANY
ADDITIONS
AND CHANGES HAVE TAKEN PLACE SINCE THEN AS ITS FUNCTION ALTERED AND CAME INTO GREATER PROMINENCE IN RECENT YEARS.
IT
IS NOT SURPRISING, THEREFORE,
THAT IT CONTAINS MANY WORKS OF ART DATING FROM THE
18TH
CENTURY UP TO
THE PRESENT DAY.
Paintings and sculpture on loan from the Crawford Art Gallery, the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, the Arts Council and the OPW State Art Collection occupy the principal reception rooms at ground floor level. The Entrance Hall contains substantial art works by Irish artists alongside a large vibrant painting by Chinese artist Zhao Shaoruo (b. 1962), which was a gift to President Michael D. Higgins, and symbolically refers to ‘11.11. 2011’ the date of his inauguration. There are also plaster portrait busts on display including Daniel O’Connell by John Hogan and poet James Clarence Mangan by Oliver Sheppard and a small 1798 memorial sculpture, also by Sheppard, on loan from the National Museum of Ireland. Many of the works on display are by some of Ireland’s most esteemed artists such as Sir John
Lavery, Patrick Collins, William Leech, Harry Kernoff, Roderic O’Connor, Mary Swanzy and Brian Bourke. There are also formal oil portraits of former Presidents by some of Ireland’s foremost artists on display. The first President of Ireland, Dr Douglas Hyde, decided in 1944 to assemble a collection of portraits, prints and pictures of historical interest. Later he bequeathed his substantial collection of fascinating material to Áras an Uachtaráin. The Douglas Hyde collection contains paintings, engravings, etchings and other works on paper, as well as bronze, marble and plaster casts of some historic Irish figures, many of which are on view throughout the building. Bronze portrait busts of all previous Presidents of Ireland are displayed on marble pedestals in the elegant Lafranchini corridor. The most recent - 50 -