Trove
3 December 2014 – 8 March 2015
Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin
This show was a selection of works from the collections of the National Museums of Ireland: The National Gallery, National Museum, Irish Museum of Modern Art , Natural History Museum and the Museum of Country Life .
Trove came into being due to an extraordinary invitation to access treasures within the museum’s collections and to delve into the stores and archives of this rarely seen world. Days were spent searching through the stores, with Johanne Mullan, to find things that attracted and excited. Bringing objects together was a chance to re/consider things that had already been considered exceptional, and to create new relationships between painting and object from collections that would rarely meet. The selection did not aim for celebrity works but for lesser known items that remain in the shadows. The intention of Trove was to harness the excitement of pulling open a drawer in the museum to find a row of fossilised sharks teeth or exquisite miniatures. We wandered down corridors where shelf upon shelf contained bronze-age pots and giant balls of bog-butter. Trove was about discovery and the possibility of considering Poussin or Vermeer in the same breath as a hummingbird egg.
List of works above (click to expand)
Thomas Ruff Porträt 2001 (A. Roters), 2001
Skull of northern bottlenose whale (Hyperoodon ampullatus) from Co. Louth. From Sir Henry Bellingham, 1900
John Lawlor, The Blind Girl at Castle Cuille
Skull of long-finned pilot whale (Globicephala melas)
Thomas Kirk, Sir William Rowan Hamilton, Mathematician and Astronomer Royal in Ireland
Skull of Cuvier’s beaked whale (Ziphius cavirostris) from Slyne Head, Clifden, Co. Galway. From Mr James O’Malley, 1930
John Hogan, Portrait of a Young Woman
Skull of long-finned pilot whale (Globicephala melas) found buried in sand, beach at Roundstone, Co. Galway. From Mr D.R. Tristram, 1959
Christopher Moore, Thomas Moore (1779–1852), Poet
Skull of Cuvier’s beaked whale (Ziphius cavirostris) from Slyne Head, Clifden, Co. Galway. From Mr James O’Malley, 1930
Edward Foley, Portrait of a Girl, 1873
Jacopo Tintoretto, Portrait of a Venetian Gentleman, 1555
List of works above (click to expand)
Joseph Higgins, Portrait of a Girl in Pink, undated
Thomas Ruff, Porträt 2001 (A. Roters), 2001
Christopher Moore, Thomas Moore (1779–1852), Poet
Skull of Cuvier’s beaked whale (Ziphius cavirostris) from Slyne Head, Clifden, Co. Galway. From Mr James O’Malley, 1930
Edward Foley, Portrait of a Girl, 1873
List of works above (click to expand)
Home Alter, c.1950
Wooden shrine, c.1950
Home alter, c.1945
Charles Lamb, A Quaint Couple, 1930
Photograph of the Crawford School of Art-Life drawing, c.1930
Dry Turf Barrow, c.1950
Soap bars, c.1940
Hen’s Nest of plaited straw with single compartment, 1955
Willie Doherty, Protecting/Invading, 1987
Báinín jacket, 1962
Drár bán, 1963
Pampooties, c.1930
Bog butter, Ireland, find place and exact date unknown, possibly medieval period.
Joseph Higgins, An Strachaire Fi, c.1823
List of works above (click to expand)
Ogham stone, Gortatlea, Co Kerry, 6th century A.D.
Ogham stone, Derryquin, Co Kerry, late 6th – early 7th century A.D.
Ogham stone, Ballinvoher, Co Kerry, early 6th century A.D.
Ogham stone, Martramane, Co Kerry, early 6th century A.D.
Ogham stone, Lisselane, Co Kerry, 5th century A.D.
Ogham stone, Ballyhank, Co Cork, mid to late 5th century A.D.
Ogham stone, Whitefield I, Co Kerry 5th -6th century A.D.
Ogham stone, Whitefield II, Co Kerry, mid to late 5th century A.D.
Ogham stone, Killorglin, Co Kerry, 5th century A.D.
William McKeown, Hope Painting (Going Through the Looking Glass), 2005, 2005
Image of Apollo, c.350 BC, originally selected to stand with the Ogham Stones however the work is too fragile to travel
Sheela-na-gig, Seir Kieran, Co Offaly, late medieval period
Occasionally a male model was present amongst the stones – replacing the marble statue of a Greek Apollo pictured, that was unavailable to borrow.
List of works above (click to expand)
LEFT:
Georgian Irish wing armchair
Iron Meteorite from Campo del Cielo, Argentina. 137kg nickel iron alloy, c.4.5 billion year old fragment of debris left over after planets formed in the early Solar System
CENTRE:
Orrery (solar system model)
Patrick Scott, Meditation Painting 28, 2007
RIGHT:
Báinín jacket, 1962
Drár bán, 1963
Pampooties, c.1930
Home Alter, c.1950
Wooden shrine, c.1950 Home alter, c.1945
Gold beads, Tumna, Co. Roscommon, Late Bronze Age c. 900–700 BC
Patrick Scott, Meditation Painting 28, 2007
List of works above (click to expand)
Dry Turf Barrow, c.1950
Soap bars, c.1940
Hen’s Nest of plaited straw with single compartment, 1955
Bog butter, Ireland, find place and exact date unknown, possibly medieval period.
Báinín jacket, 1962
Drár bán, 1963
Pampooties, c.1930
Joseph Higgins, An Strachaire Fi, c.1823
William Fisher, Portrait of Samuel Skillin, undated
Paul Henry, Five sketchbooks, 1910s–1930s
Paul Henry, Dawn, Connemara, 1918–19
List of works above (click to expand)
Giovanni Battista Naldini, The Corselet Bearers (after Mantegna’s painting ‘The Triumph of Julius Caesar’), early 16th century
Paul Nugent, Cardinal 1, 1997
Fergus Martin, Untitled, 1996
John Hogan, An arm showing muscles, c.1820-21 Arm, c.1820-21
Nest of oven bird (Furnarius rufus) from Brazil
Nest of oven bird (Furnarius rufus) from Buenos Aires, Argentina. From Rev. J. Bannon SJ, 1904"
List of works above (click to expand)
Giovanni Battista Naldini, The Corselet Bearers (after Mantegna’s painting ‘The Triumph of Julius Caesar’), early 16th century
Paul Nugent, Cardinal 1, 1997
Fergus Martin, Untitled, 1996
John Hogan, An arm showing muscles, c.1820-21 Arm, c.1820-21
Nest of oven bird (Furnarius rufus) from Brazil
Nest of oven bird (Furnarius rufus) from Buenos Aires, Argentina. From Rev. J. Bannon SJ, 1904"
Work selection process – Studio, Connemara
Nigel Monaghan, Director of the Natural History Museum Dublin