Restoring a hidden masterpiece
RDJ is a proud sponsor of the One Here Now The Brian O'Doherty Patrick Ireland Project, an ambitious project being undertaken by the Sirius Arts Centre to restore a series of spectacular floor-to-ceiling wall paintings that were made twenty years ago by New York-based Irish artist Brian O’ Doherty (then known as Patrick Ireland), and subsequently covered up, until now.
In the light-filled centre gallery of Sirius Arts Centre in Cobh, County Cork, behind two layers of liner paper and twenty years of white emulsion, lies a very well-kept secret.
One, Here, Now is a nine-part series of spectacular floor-to-ceiling wall paintings by the eminent New York-based Irish artist Brian O’Doherty (formerly known as Patrick Ireland), that were made over twenty years ago and subsequently covered up and almost forgotten about, until now. O’Doherty, spent a residency at Sirius painting the walls with huge murals in his renowned abstract style. The murals were on view for two years, before being covered up with lining paper and layers of paint
RDJ is proud to sponsor the highly ambitious project being undertaken by The Sirius Arts Centre to restore these wonderful murals and display them for a year. The project will be marked by a year-long series of specially commissioned artworks, music compositions, performances and talks to celebrate, re-interrogate and most importantly, preserve these important Irish works for future generations.
See here for more information on the project and schedule of events
Image: Don Knox Conservator at work on the restoration of One, Here, Now by Miranda Driscoll, Sirius Arts Centre
ABOUT THE SIRIUS ARTS CENTRE
Sirius Arts Centre is a multi-disciplinary arts organisation in the Cobh-Glanmire municipal district of east Cork. It is housed in a beautiful Italiante building that was designed by Anthony Salvin in 1854 to house the Royal Cork Yacht Club, the oldest in the world. Salvin was best known for his restoration work on Windsor Castle and the Tower of London. This is the only example of Salvin’s work in Ireland. For twenty-six years the building has housed the Sirius Arts Centre; an organisation that is dedicated to the facilitation and development of artistic expression on a local, national and international stage. This is the only organisation of its kind in the east Cork area.
ABOUT BRIAN O’DOHERTY
Brian O’Doherty (known as Patrick Ireland from 1972 – 2008), is undoubtedly one of Ireland’s most important living artists. He left Ireland in 1957 and became known internationally as one of the pioneering figures in the conceptual art movement in 1960’s New York through a multi-faceted practice as a visual artist, writer, critic and novelist. O’Doherty has produced many seminal works including the Portrait of Marcel Duchamp (1966-7) and an early exhibition in a box, Aspen 5+6 (1967), which included works by Samuel Beckett Roland Barthes, Susan Sontag and John Cage. O’Doherty is also well-known for his seminal text - Inside the White Cube. He was a director of the National Endowment of the Arts in the U.S. where he was responsible for two major public television series - American Masters and Great Performances. His name is synonymous with Marcel Duchamp, Marc Chagall, Joseph Albers and Edward Hopper among others.
In 1972 Brian O’Doherty changed his artist name to Patrick Ireland in protest at the killings of civil rights marchers in Derry, Northern Ireland. After the Good Friday Agreement Patrick Ireland was buried in a ceremony celebrating peace at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, in 2008. For thirty-six years Patrick Ireland exhibited throughout the United States and Europe a unique series of installations called Rope Drawings.
Major retrospectives of O’Doherty/Ireland’s work have been held at the National Museum of American Art (1986), The Elvehjem Museum of Art (1993), The Butler Institute of American Art (1994), and Dublin City Gallery, the Hugh Lane (2006) which travelled to the Grey Art Gallery, New York (2007). O’Doherty/Ireland’s art is held in numerous private and public collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Centre George Pompidou, Paris; Dublin City Gallery, the Hugh Lane, Dublin; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; the Crawford Gallery, Cork; National Museum of American Art, Washington D.C.; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle WA; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.