GERMAN ARTIST Gertrude Degenhardt and Kenny’s have enjoyed a long and fruitful professional relationship and both celebrate their 70th birthday this year.
To mark this milestone, for both the artist and the gallery, Kenny’s will host the It Is About Time To Have A Good Time exhibition, featuring 70 works by Gertrude in her 70th year as Kenny’s celebrates its 70th anniversary.
The exhibition opens at The Kenny Gallery, Liosban Retail Park, Tuam Road, this Saturday at 2pm by filmmaker, photographer, and writer Bob Quinn.
Since 1980, Gertrude Degenhardt’s distinctive, atmospheric, and effervescent works have become among the most distinctive and iconic images in the Galway arts scene.
Gertrude was born in New York in 1940 and grew up in Berlin. She has worked as an independent painter and graphic artist since 1966 and is one of Germany’s leading painters and graphic artists.
She came to Ireland first in the early 1970s, when she was commissioned to make some illustrations for a German edition of a book of short stories by Liam O’Flaherty She fell in love with the west of Ireland and has been coming here ever since.
Gertrude is a workaholic. She is constantly drawing, etching, and recording. Most of her dry-point etching is done on site - on the landscape or in the pub - hence its fluidity and spontaneity. There is also an element of caricature about the work.
While there is a Germanic influence evident in these etchings, they are quintessentially west of Ireland. The An Spidéal area remains the inspiration, though recent visits to Doolin have produced some superb graphics.
She has produced a number of exhibitions for the Kenny Gallery. These include Farewell To Connaught, featuring dry-point etchings selected from her vast portfolio relating to the west; Women in Music, a series of some 70 images of female musicians playing extraordinary instruments; Vagabondage; And Passes By; Paradise Lost; Vagabondage en Rouge; and Dancing Couples.
It Is About Time To Have A Good Time will run daily from 9am to 5pm until October 8. Don’t miss it.
