AN EXHIBTION of the world’s largest collection of Famine-related art is to go on display in Derry.
Coming Home: Art and the Great Hunger will run from January 18 until March 16, 2019 at An tSeaneaglais (The Glassworks) at Cultúrlann Uí Chanáin.
The exhibition, on loan from Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum at Quinnipiac University in the US, features more than 50 artworks by Irish artists including Jack B. Yeats, Dorothy Cross, Paul Henry, William Crozier and John Behan.
The exhibition runs until March 16, 2019The exhibition has already been on display at Dublin Castle and West Cork Arts Centre.
This will be the only opportunity to view the art in Northern Ireland and the last stop in Ireland before it returns to the US in March.
“It was always Quinnipiac University’s ambition to make this an all island exhibition,” said Ryan Mahoney, director of Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum.
Anguish 2002, by Glenna Goodacre and Departure, 1995, by Pádraic Reaney“We hand-selected Cultúrlann due to its commitment to culture and the arts and its ambition to become Derry’s new Creative Quarter.
“The Great Hunger is an event that affected all of Ireland. In 1847, over 12,000 emigrants left the port here in Derry.
“It was important to the University to acknowledge the impact the Great Hunger had locally, and to provide Derry and the wider region with an opportunity to experience this unique collection.”
It will be the last chance to see the artwork before it returns to AmericaAt Thursday’s launch, Cultúrlann director Eibhlín Ní Dhochartaigh described the exhibition as ‘a homecoming’.
'This will be a unique opportunity for the people of Derry to familiarise themselves with a story that is so intrinsic to our culture and identity,” she said.
“We’re encouraging everyone to visit us this January and to view this exhibition as a homecoming, because the famine story is part of our heritage, and the art will provide a deeper connection to and understanding of this story.”
