Custom House Studios in Westport is hosting an exhibition of a selection of works from the The Irish American Cultural Institute’s O’Malley Collection of 20th Century Art at the University of Limerick. The exhibition was formally opened by Pearce O’Malley, chief of the O’Malley Clan, last night at Custom House Studios Westport.
In 1938 Irish Republican Ernie O’Malley returned to his childhood home of Mayo with his American wife, artist Helen Hooker. They made their home at Burrishoole Lodge, near Newport on the northern shore of Clew Bay. The couple began to collect art works and build a collection of modern Irish, European, and American art, as well as photographs and objects. They also set out examining life in rural Ireland and compiled an extensive collection of photographs of examples of Irish sculpture, as well as the people in Mayo, capturing their way of life and the environment that surrounded them.
This collection is now owned by The Irish American Cultural Institute, and is on loan to the University of Limerick. Custom House Studios hosts a selection of the collection including paintings, drawings, prints, and sculptural objects. The exhibition includes works by Irish artists Evie Hone, Paul Henry, Patrick Hennessy, Anne Yeats, Cecil Salkeld Ffrench, Mainie Jellett, Louis Le Brocquy, Sean O’Sullivan, Robert Burke, and Michael O’Sullivan, American painters including Dorothy Brett, Chauncey Ryder, Rockwell Kent, Mahroni Young, Mark Tobey, and Europeans Elizabeth Rivers, Amedo Modigliani, Aristide Maillol, Georges Rouault, and Pierre Boujet. The exhibition runs every day until November 28 and admission is free.
