The symposium examines the role of visual culture in the aftermath of political independence of the Irish Free State in 1922 up to outbreak of World War II in 1939. It seeks to make comparisons and connections between the visual culture of the new Irish state and those of other European and international nations and regions in the interwar period. It asks what role visual culture played in constructing new identities and in communicating national values and shared ideals to a diverse population and to the wider world.

Co-convenors Dr Róisín Kennedy, UCD and Dr. Elaine Sisson, IADT, supported by Decades of Centenaries

Schedule (provisional):

9.30 Introduction

Panel A: 9.45-11.00 Design and Public Spectacle

Orla Fitzpatrick (NMI): Montaging a nation: the Reimann School and Studios’ photomontage displays for the Irish pavilion at the New York World’s Fair, 1939-1949

Lisa Godson (NCAD): Participating in Mass Spectacle: The 1932 Eucharistic Congress

Sherra Murphy (IADT): Competing Irishness: The Dublin Horse Show and the Tailteann Games, 1924

Billy Shortall (TCD): Exposition d’Art Irlandais, Paris 1922

Panel B: 11.20-12.15 Early Career Researchers

Grace O’Sullivan (TCD): Mainie Jellett at the 1938 Glasgow Empire Exhibition

Paul Donnelly (TCD): Showcasing Irish Stained Glass: Harry Clarke’s Studios at the 1939 New York’s World’s Fair

Hannah Baker (TCD): Sarah Cecilia Harrison: A Traditionalist in Modern Ireland.

Panel C: 13.00-14.00 Modernism at Home

Ann Wilson (MTU): Foreign-looking Madonnas: Seamus Murphy’s Irish Christian School of Sculpture

Angela Griffith (TCD): Elizabeth Rivers, a Stranger in Aran

Tom Spalding: Cork City’s Early Modernist Industrial Buildings: McKechnies, Fords and Sunbeam

Panel D: 14-20-15.15 Encounters with Modernism

Siobhán O’Gorman (IADT): Scenographic Interactions and the Irish Free State: The Dublin Gate’s Premiere of Denis Johnston’s The Old Lady Says ‘No!’ (1929)

Kerry Meakin (TUD): Window Display – Irish influences and influencers 1922-1939

Linda King (IADT): ‘Eire Joins the Nations in the Air’: Aer Lingus Advertising in the Popular Press, 1936-39

***Zoom link will be emailed to Attendees the day before the event***