Lectures & Events

To celebrate the opening of a major exhibition of the work of the definitive Limerick artist, Sean Keating, in the Crawford Art Gallery, Curator Dr. Éimear O’ Connor will join us in Limerick City Gallery of Art to discuss one of the most significant works in the Collection: ‘Man of the West’, a portrait of Keating by his mentor Sir William Orpen, which has travelled to Cork for the exhibition.

Keating was important political painter and cultural commentator in the difficult post- Treaty years as Ireland sought a new national and international identity, creating iconic images of the War of Independence, Ireland’s early industrialisation and the people of the Aran Islands. By virtue of his project to continually paint emerging history and his politicised response to many aspects of Irish life in the post colonial era, Keating’s work and circumstances epitomise the tension between tradition and modernity that is now understood to be absolutely necessary in the quest for a national identity.