LCGA Exhibitions 2023

A Vivid Imagination invited over 50 people who have been closely associated with LCGA to select pieces from the Collection which particularly engage them. The title references Sean Keating’s speech when awarded Freedom of the City on the launch of the West Gallery extension in March 1948. Keating praised Limerick Corporation for its foresight to inaugurate a municipal gallery and expressed his impression of Limerick as ‘a city of dignity and manners’, whose ‘people had a vivid imagination and only needed a vivid vocabulary to be entirely distinctive’.[i] This exhibition responds to Keating’s words, inviting the people of Limerick to delve into both imagination and vocabulary in describing how the LCGA Collection engages them.

As part of this, A Vivid Imagination, the inaugural exhibition from 1948 is recreated in the West Gallery, showcasing many of the highlights of the original collection. Included in this presentation are works by Sean Keating, Sir John Lavery, Evie Hone, Grace Henry, Paul Henry, Sean O'Sullivan and Walter Osbourne, among many more.

The newest acquisition to the Collection ‘The Siege of Limerick’ (1970) by eminent artist Brian O’Doherty (formerly Patrick Ireland), will be presented for the first time at its new home. This work was purchased under the Percent for Art Scheme for the Phase II Redevelopment 2010-11.

[i] Limerick Chronicle, Saturday March 27^th 1948. Article: Freemen of Limerick, Impressive Civil Ceremony – New Gallery Opened.