A Dublin, Ireland Gem: The Hugh Lane Gallery [Video]
There is a modern art gallery in Dublin, Ireland that's not so grand as the Louvre in Paris or the Prado in Madri.
It's the Hugh Lane Gallery and it could fit several times in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
But none of that matters.
The pocket size gem of a museum houses some of Ireland's most exciting modern and contemporary art, and is home to the actual studio of the wildly eccentric but brilliant Irish artist, Francis Bacon.
Some of the outstanding contemporary artists, or at least my favs are Kathy Prendegast's ( 1958) Waiting, a powerful study in loss and love.
Her three headless women dressed neatly in Victorian dresses suggest a separate feminine reality, condemning, perhaps, and timeless.
Then there's Daniel O'Neil's (1920 1974) St. Joseph's Church, a deceptively simple building, but a closer look suggests all is not well here. The eeriness is unnerving, a menace held tightly within the religious simplicity of the painting.
But it's the living studio of Irish genius and painter, Francis Bacon, (1909 1992) that gives the Hugh Lane its cache and place in art history.
Bacon was much influenced by Picasso and the expressionists, and the people in his works are often in pain, tortured souls sometimes found in cages.
The Hugh Lane Gallery has reconstructed Bacon's studio in all its chaos and craziness giving us insight into the artist and his creative process.
Admission to the Hugh Lane Gallery is free, and as Frommers guide book puts it, “It's an excellent, compact museum, a perfect place to spend an afternoon in Dublin."
The Hugh Lane is a gracious old, stone building with wonderful concerts as well as its impressive proud collection.
As they say, it’s a perfect place to spend an afternoon.
Hugh Lane Travel Video PostCard
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