100 Years of the FNCI
14th February 2024 – 13th July 2024
2024 marks the one-hundredth year of the founding of the Friends of the National Collections of Ireland (FNCI) by renowned artist and long-term resident of Dungarvan, Sarah Purser. The FNCI is the oldest arts charity in Ireland, established for the purpose of acquiring works of art and objects of historical interest and donating them to national and regional art galleries and museums throughout the country. Since the very beginnings of the Waterford Art Collection in 1939 it has been incredibly fortunate to have benefited from the continued generosity of the FNCI. On show will be artworks gifted by the FNCI to the collection by artists Grace Henry, Sylvia Cooke-Collis, Jack P. Hanlon, Augustus John, Bernard Lintoff, Ferenc Martyn, Caroline Scally, Gerard Vulliamy and Robert Burke as well as Sarah Purser’s painting ‘A Woman’ (c.1880) gifted as part of the Richard Irvine Best bequest.
Prints and Drawings from the Waterford Art Collection
14th February 2024 – 13th July 2024
An exhibition showcasing printed and graphic works on paper from the Waterford Art Collection, much of which has been recently restored and conserved. When the Waterford Art Collection was established in 1939 it comprised of seventeen artworks by primarily well-known Irish artists. Among the oil paint and watercolour landscapes, pastel portraits, a marble bust and an Irish Chippendale chair was a single mezzotint copy of a Jan Steen self-portrait by Eugène James Tily. Preceding Waterford Art Exhibitions were formed through displays of reproductions of works by Old Masters, the enthusiasm for which soon made evident a burgeoning artistic appetite within the City. This exhibition includes works by James Abbott McNeill Whistler, William Mulready, Antoni Tàpies, Anne Yeats, Patrick Hickey, Elizabeth Rivers, Alice Hanratty and more.
Both exhibitions are free. WGOA is open Wed-Sat, 10-5.