 Mildred Anne Butler, RWS (1858 - 1941) "Peacocks, Kilmurry" Watercolour, 4" x 7" Irish artist, Mildred Anne Butler was born in 1858. She came from an artistic background, her father, Captain Edward Butler, being a keen watercolourist. She lived for most of her life at her family home, Kilmurry, outside Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny. The house and its gardens and grounds became her chief source of inspiration with flower pieces and landscapes with birds and animals featuring largely in her watercolours. In 1885 she visited France, Switzerland and Italy with her sketchbook. The following year she was in London and worked with fellow Irish artist, Rose Barton (1856 - 1929) under Paul Jacob Naftel (1817 -91). She studied with him for the next three years, sending her work from Kilmurry to London for him to inspect. The Dudley Gallery in London began showing her work in 1888. In 1890 she exhibited with the Watercolour Society of Ireland. Her work was included in a book of watercolours given by the Society of Lady Artists to Princess Mary, later Queen Mary on her marriage to the Duke of York. Queen Mary later bought a watercolour by the artist.
In 1894 she visited Paris and later that year she travelled with May Guinness (1863 - 1955) to Newlyn in Cornwall where she studied under the Irish painter Norman Garstin (1847 - 1926) who ran summer painting classes in Newlyn. She also returned there the following summer. It is quite likely that Garstin, who knew Degas and had written about Manet, introduced Mildred Anne Butler to the work of the Impressionists. In 1896 the purchase by the Chanterey Bequest of her painting "The Morning Bath" which she had shown at the Royal Academy was a major success and at the time a rare honour for a woman. Also that year she was made an associate of the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours, but she had to wait forty-one years to become a full member. As well as attending the Westminster School of Art, she also spent a term in the studio of the animal painter, William Frank Calderon (1865 - 1943). Although she rarely painted in England she exhibited there often, being one of the artists selected by Hugh Lane for his exhibition of Irish painters in the Guildhall of London Corporation in 1904. In 1907 she was included in an exhibition at the New Dudley Gallery, London with Percy French, Claude Hayes and Bingham McGuinness. She also exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy. During her career she only ever exhibited five works at the Royal Hibernian Academy, the first in 1891 and the last in 1904. In addition to painting in and around the family home, Kilmurry, Mildred Anne Butler also holidayed in Tramore regularly and painted there. From 1905 onwards she often travelled to France and painted in the town of Aix les Bains. She painted little in the last ten years of her life and she died on the 11th of October 1941. Her work is now housed in most major collections in Ireland and England, including the National Gallery of Ireland, the Hugh Lane Gallery, the Ulster Museum and the Tate Gallery. A major retrospective of her work was held at the Crawford Municipal Gallery in 1987. Sarah Purser, RHA 1848-1943 Sarah Purser, RHA (1848-1943) "Portrait of a Lady" Oil on canvas, 16" x 12" Sarah Purser is one of the leading Irish artists of the twentieth century. Her reputation is founded not just on her skills as a painter, but also on her role as a major advocate of Irish art and culture, throughout her life. She was born in 1848 in Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin, the youngest of eight children and she was educated in Switzerland. In 1872, with the decline of her father's business, her parents separated and Sarah went to live with her mother in Ballsbridge. With the downturn in her family finances, she decided to pursue a career as a society portrait painter. She first studied art at the Metropolitan School of Art, Dublin before moving to Paris in 1879, where she studied at the Academie Julian. One of her most famous paintings, "Le Petit Dejeuner", now at the National Gallery of Ireland, dates from this period. In this painting she depicts her friend, Maria Feller, who was studying music in Paris, at that time, seated at a breakfast table in a Parisian cafe, lost in thought. Portrait painting was to become Sarah Purser's forte throughout her long career as an artist.
However, in addition to her career as a portrait painter, she also established herself in Dublin as a leading figure of cultural nationalism and her home on Harcourt Terrace became a hub for literary, artistic and social activity. In 1903, she established "An Tur Gloine" (The Glass Tower) in order to develop and sustain an indigenous Irish stained glass industry. Many important stained glass windows in churches throughout Ireland were produced there and most of the major Irish stained glass artists, such as Evie Hone worked there, until its closure in 1944. In 1924 Sarah Purser founded the Friends of the National Collections of Ireland. The purpose of this organisation, was to bring about the return of Sir Hugh Lane's collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings from London to Dublin, as there had been a dispute after his death as to where he wanted his art collection to be housed. She was also instrumental in securing Charlemont House as a premises for what is now Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane. As a successful portrait painter and advocate for the arts, Sarah Purser was a key figure in the development of the visual arts in 20th century Ireland. She led the way for other Irish women artists, by showing them that they could take up art as a profession, and gain their own independence. She also made history in Ireland in 1924 as she was the first female artist to become a full member of the prestigious Royal Hibernian Academy.  Norman Garstin (1847 - 1926) "Portrait of a Breton Fisherman" Oil on canvas, 16" x 10" Norman Garstin was born in County Limerick in 1847. At a young age, due to ill health he was sent to live on the Channel Islands, but returned to Ireland frequently on holidays, where he spent his time hunting and painting. His family encouraged him to enter professional life and he first studied engineering in Cork, before moving to London to study architecture.
Seeking his fortune, he moved to Kimberley in South Africa, for two years, where he spent his time mining for diamonds. He then entered the newspaper business, and founded the Cape Times newspaper with Cecil Rhodes. On returning to Ireland, he was subsequently injured in a riding accident and lost the sight in one eye. Ironically it was then that he made the choice to become an artist. In 1880 he travelled to Antwerp and studied under the artist, Charles Verlat, for two years. In Antwerp, it is quite likely that he would have met other Irish artists such as Joseph Malachy Kavanagh and Walter-Osborne who were also studying there at that time. He then moved to Paris, where he continued his studies at the atelier of the painter Carolus Duran and where he met the Impressionist painters Edouard Manet and Edgar Degas. He wrote enthusiastically of Manet's paintings as early as 1884 describing them as exuding "a delicious brightness and happiness ..He lets in light and air. Pictures like his later ones amongst the brown bitumen canvases of the average exhibition seem like patches of sunlight on a prison wall" He first exhibited at the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin in 1883 with a painting entitled "Birds Nesting", which he sent from Paris. During the years that he lived in Paris, he travelled extensively visiting Italy, Spain and North Africa. He then married and moved to England, settling in Newlyn in Cornwall, where he became an eloquent spokesman for the Newlyn School of Art. In 1890 he moved with his family to Penzance, where he lived for the rest of his life. In 1892 he recorded the opening of the Canadian Pacific Railway, sending back illustrations to the Art Journal. He also supported himself by holding annual summer schools of painting in northern France and by writing articles for various art magazines, including The Studio. During his career, he contributed a total of thirty four paintings to the annual exhibitions at the Royal Hibernian Academy. In 1904 he was one of the artists chosen by Hugh Lane for a major Irish art exhibition, which was held at the Guildhall in London. Also, that same year he held a watercolour exhibition, entitled "In Border Lands" at the Fine Art Society, London showing landscapes from Normandy, Brittany and Holland. He also exhibited at the Royal Academy and the Ridley Art Club in London and at the Walker Gallery in Liverpool. His final contribution to the Royal Hibernian Academy was a painting entitled "The Sarine" which was exhibited there in 1916. His paintings are now housed in many important collections, including the National Gallery of Ireland, the Tate Gallery and the Victoria & Albert Museum.  Walter Osborne (1859 - 1903) "A Dublin Backstreet in the Snow" Watercolour & gouache, 20" x 14" (Signed & dated 1895) Walter Osborne was born in Dublin in 1859, the son of a well known animal painter, William Osborne (1823 - 1901). He studied at the Royal Hibernian Academy Schools in Dublin and at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art. In 1881 he won the Taylor scholarship at the Royal Dublin Society, which allowed him to travel to Antwerp. There he enrolled at the Academie Royale des Beaux Arts and joined the Natuur (painting and drawing from life) class given by the animal painter Charles Verlat (1824 - 1890). In 1883 having completed his training, Osborne travelled to Brittany, by then a popular destination for painters wishing to paint en plein air. Osborne worked in the countryside around the towns of Pont Aven, Dinan and Quimperle. One of his best known paintings from this period is his famous Apple Gathering, Quimperlé, now in the National Gallery of Ireland. During this time he became friendly with many artists and was influenced especially by Jules Bastien - Lepage, the French painter who used a grey, even light in his paintings, and promoted the square brush technique, a technique where paint is laid down in blocks of colour with a flat square brush. Osborne was also influenced in his work by two English plein air painters, George Clausen and Stanhope Forbes. On his return from France in 1884, Osborne spent most of the next few years in various small English towns. In England he worked with Nathaniel Hill and Edward Stott in Worcestershire. He worked in the open air continuing to paint the rural scenes, villages and cottage gardens that he had painted on the Continent. He spent the winter months in Ireland and showed annually at the Royal Hibernian Academy exhibition, where he also became an influential teacher. In 1883 he was elected an associate of the RHA and in 1886 he became a full member. He then settled in Dublin where he assumed responsibility for the upbringing of his niece, Violet Osborne, who on the death of her mother in childbirth was sent from Canada to Ireland to be reared by her grandparents. He continued to paint outdoors in and around Dublin, but these works proved difficult to sell and so he entered the more lucrative area of portrait painting, where he was very successful. He continued to exhibit at the RHA and at the Royal Academy exhibitions in London, where his work was always popular. His later works show an "impressionistic" influence where his usual dark tonality gave way to brighter colours and an increased interest in the effects of sunlight and shadows. In 1900 for reasons unknown he refused the offer of a knighthood. His career ended quite tragically in 1903, when aged only forty four, he died of pneumonia. It is with some justification that his unsentimental atmospheric paintings with their popular charm earned him the title of "the Irish Impressionist". 
We have just returned from this years Irish Antique Dealers' Fair at the R.D.S. Dublin, where we showcased over eighty paintings, and thirty five bronze sculptures on our stand, laid out in a room setting furnished with selected antique furniture, Daum glass vases and antique lamps. The antiques fair is always a wonderful opportunity to see Ireland's leading antique dealers all under one roof, and this year the fair was officially opened by Carleton Varney, President of Dorothy Draper & Co. who is a world renowned decorator, designer & author. His client list is second to none and features major Hollywood icons, such as Fay Wray, Joan Crawford, Van Johnson & Ethel Merman.
 Alexey Krasnovsky - Harvest Moon, Oil on linen, 28" x 35" Alexey Krasnovsky, one of Jorgensen Gallery’s longest standing artists, sadly passed away recently in Dublin, a place that had been his home for the past twenty-five years. Born in Russia in 1945, he studied painting in St. Petersburg at the Tavrichesky College of Art under the constructivist painter Alexander Pavlovitch Zaitev. In 1979 Alexey left Russia and emigrated to the United States, where he first lived in New York city before moving to Woodstock, New York. During this time he travelled extensively throughout the United States, Mexico, and Europe, before finally moving to Ireland.  Alexey Krasnovsky - Isla Tavira, Portugal, Oil on linen, 15.5" x 19.5"  Alexey Krasnovsky - Still Life with Russian Toys, Oil on linen, 35" x 39" Alexey had numerous successful solo exhibitions at Jorgensen Fine Art, as the gallery was previously known, his last being in 2014.
Below is the catalogue introduction from that exhibition, written by Sile Connaughton Deeny. Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. W.B. YEATS Colour, which, like music, is a matter of vibrations, reaches what is most general and therefore most indefinable in nature: its inner power… PAUL GAUGUIN Colour is the language of this exhibition, at times the voice is loud and vibrant, the colour thickly and defiantly applied. At others it is sotto voce the colours pared-back and almost withheld. There is a divide between the earthly and the ethereal, the sensual and the spiritual. We are reminded of the raw sexuality of the work of Gauguin juxtaposed with the tender innocence of that of van Gogh. The earthiness of Billy’s Bay Jamaica, Hot Peppers and Still Life with White Onion is almost tangible. We smell the soil which nourishes the Chestnut Clarinda Park. As for Flying Squirrel and Cardinal Red, I think Gauguin would have been hard-pressed to convey such relish in Nature’s fecundity. In total contrast, the lighter, airier, more dreamlike works such as Gibbous Moon, Tavira Portugal, Conversation Collioures and, perhaps most especially, Moorish Castle Tavira are heartbreakingly tender and touching. They are the dreams that Yeats speaks of in his poem. These works are laced with Alexey’s life experiences; he is in every brushstroke, every trope. He openly parades his emotions, cracking open the carapace to expose to us the tenderloin of his inner self. It truly behoves us to ‘tread softly’. Síle Connaughton-Deeny, May 2014  Ib Jorgensen, one of Ireland’s top fashion designers, originally founded Jorgensen Fine Art in 1992 in his fashion salon housed in an elegant Georgian building on Molesworth Street in Dublin city centre. Jorgensen Fine Art quickly established a reputation as one of the leading art galleries in Dublin, with on average ten exhibitions per year featuring paintings by the leading names of 20th century Irish art, in addition to paintings and sculpture by contemporary Irish and international artists. Since then, the gallery moved premises a number of times, but we have now returned to Molesworth Street, where the original business was started and re-opened as the Jorgensen Gallery.  Jorgensen Gallery is a salon style gallery, specializing in contemporary art with paintings and bronze sculpture from Irish & International artists displayed in a room setting elegantly furnished with selected antique furniture, lamps and vases.
The gallery also stocks 19th/20th century paintings by some of the leading Irish and English Artists of that period. We currently have an exquisite watercolour by Irish Impressionist painter Walter Osborne on show and you can read more about it on our gallery blog here walter-osborne-rha-1859-1903-an-irish-impressionist-painter.html 20th Century Irish Art is represented at the Jorgensen Gallery with paintings by George Campbell, Arthur Armstrong and Evie Hone, which are displayed alongside paintings by our contemporary gallery artists such as Mark Cullen, Sean McSweeney, Clement McAleer, Allan Madsen, Alexey Krasnovsky, Dale Pring MacSweeney, Caroline Canning and Tim Woolcock. Contemporary bronze and stone sculpture also features prominently at the gallery with pieces by Fiona Smith, Vadim Tuzov, James Horan, Kevin Gaines, Joe Moran, Anna Campbell, Donnacha Treacy, Katherine Greene, Michael Keane & Peter Killeen.  Allan Madsen - Still Life with Onions, Oil on canvas, 36" x 36" Danish by birth, the well-travelled Allan Madsen now lives and works in the Spanish province of Murcia. His first artistic incarnation was as a musician specialising in lute music of the Renaissance. These two interests, music and the Renaissance, have certainly crossed over into his paintings. The patterning in the backgrounds of his still life paintings betrays a decided musicality whilst the texture he achieves is redolent of Italian murals. Giotto comes to mind when one studies the rich texture which is built up by the use of colour. Because of Allan’s use of pentimenti, it is as though one is in the Arena Chapel in Padua looking at the underpainting coming through due to the natural patination of age.  Allan Madsen - Still Life with Bowl, Oil on canvas, 37" x 37" Sold It is this, the sense of age, which renders the works so tranquil. There is no need to explain or to vocalise them; one wishes merely to absorb them. Influenced by the austerity of Juan Sánchez Cotán and the calm melancholy of Francisco de Zurbarán, Allan has brought an alchemy to bear upon the bodegones so beloved of the Spanish. The ineffable wistfulness of his figures, achieved by his deft use of sfumato, that subtle gradation of tone and colour used to blur the contours of a form, leads us right back to Leonardo da Vinci.  Allan Madsen - Still Life with Grapes, Oil on canvas, 35" x 35" Sold Informed by the great masters as his work undoubtedly is, the chromatic intensity of the backgrounds can be read as pure abstraction. Around and beyond the meticulously painted objects in his compositions, he has deconstructed, tessellated and then reconstructed the space to create a vibrating, tactile ground which engenders a sensuality akin to some form of not trompe l’oeil but trompe le sens!
Síle Connaughton-Deeny |