William Grimaldi (1751-1830), Hester Frances, Lady Bellingham (1763-1844), c.1795

1-31 JANUARY 2010

The National Gallery of Ireland's famous Vaughan collection of watercolours by JMW Turner (1775-1851) will be on display for the month of January. It includes Turner's most striking works in watercolour painted during his later European tours: the Doge's Palace in Venice, Lake Lucerne, and the fortresses at Bellinzona in Switzerland. This year the exhibition will be complemented by a display of seventeenth-, eight­eenth- and nineteenth-century silhouettes and miniatures from the Mary A. McNeill Bequest, comprising works by John Comerford, Richard Crosse and William Grimaldi. These delicate likenesses, painted in watercolour on ivory or enamel on copper, were popular in Turner's day and were prized as keepsakes and sometimes worn as jewellery. The collection was bequeathed to the Gallery in 1984 by Mary A. McNeill, a notable Belfast collector and historian. A fully illustrated brochure complementing the display of miniatures is avail­able from the Gallery Shop.

Print Gallery. Admission free.

Seán McSweeney, Red Landscape
© The Artist

Strule Arts Centre, Omagh, Co. Tyrone

13 JANUARY TO 13 FEBRUARY 2010
The Gallery's contemporary print exhibition, 'Revelation', will complete its tour of regional galleries and arts venues with a month-long display at the Strule Arts Centre.

(some dates & titles of exhibitions may be subject to change)

13 March - 25 July 2010
RECENT ACQUISITIONS
A decade of acquisitions at the National Gallery of Ireland will be showcased in an exhibition reflecting the different areas of the Collection. It will include works by Continental Masters from mid-nineteenth to early twentieth century (such as Van Gogh, Renoir, Caillebote, Bonnard, Pechstein and Feininger) and Old Masters (Cuyp, Maratti, Honthorst and Zoffany). The exhibition will also feature a number of important additions to the Irish collection, from landscapes by Thomas Roberts and George Barret to Modernist painters and Louis le Brocquy. The National Portrait Collection has been strengthened in recent years by writers, politicians and artists' portraits. Complementing the paintings are works on paper and miniatures, where Boucher, Orpen, Maclise, Burton, Brockhurst, Gleizes, Turner and Jack B. Yeats are represented.

4 September - 5 December 2010
GABRIEL METSU (1629-1667)
This exhibition will pay homage to the Dutch seventeenth-century artist, Gabriel Metsu (1629-1667) and his exquisite scenes of daily life, which rank among the finest of the Dutch Golden Age. It will also highlight some of Metsu's lesser known achievements in the fields of history painting, portraiture and still life. Metsu started his career in Leiden, where he painted biblical scenes on a large format. After his move to Amsterdam in the middle of the 1650s, he changed his specialisation to intimate scenes of daily life. As Metsu's style became more meticulous in the 1660s, he focused increasingly on representing the pastimes of the upper class. He died at the age of thirty-seven, having painted a varied oeuvre of more than 130 paintings. Few of his colleagues were as versatile as Metsu and his handling of the brush was almost unrivalled. Moreover, his paintings display a unique approach to daily activities, marked by a psychological interest in the people he portrayed. An accompanying catalogue will be published to coincide with the exhibition

Touring Venues: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (21 December 2010 to 21 March 2011); National Gallery of Art, Washington (17 April to 24 July 2011).