Life
1961--Art historian; b. Dublin, ed. Clonkeen Coll., and UCD (PhD 1989); worked for Dept. of Education and European Commission (Brussels); joined staff at Chester Beatty Library, 1983-85; appt. Asst. Dir. of National Gallery of Ireland, 1986-97; Director of the National Gallery of Australia , 2001-03; Hood Museum of Art, 2005; ed. Art is My Life, the tribute to James White; also ed. Town House Irish Artist Ser.; appt. Director of Toledo Museum of Art, 2010.
Chief publications. Alfred Chester Beatty and Ireland 1950-1968: A study in cultural politics Glendale Press 1988); Dreams and responsibilities: The state and arts in independent Ireland, Arts Council of Ireland (Irish Arts Council 1990); Jack B Yeats: Jack Butler Yeats, 1871-1957 [Lives of Irish Artists] (Unipub 1991); with Davis Coakley, The Anatomy Lesson: Art and Medicine (NGI 1992); with Raymond Gillespie, Ireland: Art into History (Roberts Rinehart 1994); Irish Painting (Roberts Rinehart 1997); Sean Scully: The Art of the Stripe (Hood Museum 2008); Frank Stella: Irregular Polygons, 1965-1966 (Hood Museum 2010. Also essay on Jack B. Yeats as oil-painter in Arts Review; &c.
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Criticism
[Q.a.], ‘An exceptional talent is lost to us’, in The Irish Times (11 Dec. 2001).
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