WHISTLER WHIPS-UP DUBLIN

It reads like a movie script, maybe for an up-market musical.

A group of painters, led by a dentist and a sculptor, plan an exhibition in Dublin. They call for submissions. Amazingly, the wider art world responds. Two of America’s most famous painters agree to contribute. In due course thirty pictures arrive from London. The hanging committee gives these all the best wall-space. Local artists are outraged. Their protests are ignored. A mini-riot ensues... As a result, the show attracts publicity and - crowds. Newspapers compliment the organisers for enriching the cultural life of the city. But the Irish Times’ Art Critic thinks it’s a hopeless muddle. The artistic-dentist defends the cause of Modernism...to which the Times responds with a full editorial.

The furore guarantees financial success. A businessman offers to buy the finest work on show. The American is so emotionally attached to it he refuses to sell. Ireland’s most popular young poet says the exhibition made him “happy for days”. A renowned philanthropist laments the fact that Dublin has no adequate space to display such examples of the New Art.

Elated by their triumph, the Dentist and Sculptor invite the American to be an honorary member of the group. He graciously accepts. Then, there is a lovely and gifted young lady-member with whom the American falls in love and...

No, no... sorry... that last bit is fiction. But all the rest is true. It happened in 1884. The famous Americans were James McNeill Whistler and John Singer Sargent. The painting that Whistler would not sell was “Portrait of the Painter’s Mother.” But three of the works they did sell are now in the collection of the National Gallery of Ireland.

The dental surgeon was William Booth-Pearsall... the sculptor was Fredrick Lawless. Their strongest support came from John Butler Yeats. Others involved were Richard Orpen, Nathaniel Hone, Percy French, Sarah Purser and Bram Stoker. The Irish Times was the Irish Times. The poet who loved the paintings was W.B.Yeats. The philanthropist was Hugh Lane... Later he would create Dublin’s first Gallery of Modern Art. And the group behind this triumph of artistic confusion was the Dublin Painting and Sketching Club. Nowadays they have 80 slightly less belligerent members. Unfortunately, Dublin still lacks a venue for their kind of art. So they’ll hold their 140th Anniversary Exhibition in the Concourse, Dunlaoghaire Rathdown County Hall, in April 2014.