Curatorial department

The Curatorial Department at the National Gallery of Ireland researches and exhibits our national collection. Our curator's are collection specialists within their specific area of expertise and their research interests encompass a large range of subjects.  Through their research they are dedicated to interpreting and presenting our collection to all.

 

Claire Crowley, Curatorial Assistant

Claire joined the curatorial department in January 2016 as Curatorial Fellow. Her main task has been to assist the curators with preparations for the reopening of the Gallery and the rehanging of the permanent collection. A large part of this has been researching, writing and editing new descriptive labels for the collection. In addition, Claire has administrated the Hennessy Portrait Prize (2016 & 2017) and has project managed the development of connectvermeer.org, a website that presents new research to complement the exhibition Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Paintings: Inspiration and Rivalry (2017).

Claire has contributed to the publication Creating History: Stories of Ireland in Art (2016) and co-edited the Hennessy Portrait Prize 2016 catalogue. She is currently curating Forgotten Faces, a display of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century portraits from the permanent collection.

 

Anne Hodge, Curator of Prints and Drawings

Anne was appointed Curator of Prints and Drawings in 2001. She is responsible for the works on paper collection, comprising over 12000 items, and manages the Prints and Drawings Study Room. Research interests include printmaking in Ireland, photography, landscape drawing and topography and the history of collecting. Anne curates a wide-ranging exhibition programme and has a deep interest in the work of contemporary Irish artists. She commissioned Wendy Judge to create new work for the exhibition From Galway to Leenane: Perspectives on Landscape (2013), and worked with Dorothy Cross on Trove (2014), a collaboration between the Gallery, IMMA and the Crawford Art Gallery, Cork. She has curated exhibitions with Graphic Studio Dublin and regularly collaborates with colleagues other institutions to develop exciting new exhibitions and related programmes. 

Anne is Chair of the Print Curators Forum Group (UK and Ireland); Vice Chair of the Irish Museums Association; and a member of Maynooth University Arts Committee and the International Advisory Committee of Keepers of Public Collections of Graphic Art.

 

Adrian Le Harivel, Curator of British Art

Adrian joined the Gallery as a researcher in 1981. He set up and ran the Prints and Drawings department for several years, produced the first modern catalogues of works on paper and miniatures, and organised exhibitions. Subsequently, as Curator of the Permanent Collection, he worked across the collections on research and loan exhibitions. For a time he was in charge of the Irish collection. Since 1999, his major research interests have been eighteenth-century art, and the intersection of art and music.

 

Niamh MacNally, Assistant Curator of Prints and Drawings

Niamh has developed a deep knowledge of and expertise in the wide-ranging Prints and Drawings collection during her time at the Gallery.  In addition to dealing with individual researchers and university groups wishing to view the collection, she has contributed to numerous publications including The Works of J.M.W. Turner at the National Gallery of Ireland (2012), and has edited the Gallery’s new Essential Guide and Highlights of the Collection (both 2016).  

Niamh has developed and organised an array of thematic exhibitions that focus on the collection.  She has administrated the Hennessy Portrait Prize, now going into its fourth year, and is currently working on Margaret Clarke – An Independent Spirit (2017), an exhibition that re-evaluates the work of an early twentieth-century Irish artist.  She is also coordinating an exhibition of drawings of Brazilian animals by the seventeenth-century Dutch master Frans Post for 2018.

 

Janet McLean, Curator of European Art, 1850–1950

Janet joined the curatorial team in 2006. She previously held curatorial posts at the Watts Gallery, Compton, Palace of Westminster, and Royal Academy of Arts, London. At the National Gallery, she is responsible for the acquisition, interpretation, and display of modern European paintings and sculpture. Exhibitions curated include Impressionist Interiors (2008) and Lines of Vision: Irish Writers on Art (2014). Her current research interests include the depiction of Mary Magdalene in art; cultural interchange in post-war Britain & Ireland; and colour and pattern in the work of Bonnard and Dufy.

 

Dr Brendan Rooney, Curator of Irish Art

Brendan is curator of the Gallery’s Irish paintings, sculptures and stained glass, which comprise almost half of the gallery’s collection (excluding works on paper), and date from the mid-seventeenth century to the present day. He is also responsible for the National Portrait Collection, which has existed as a subsection of the national collection since the late nineteenth century, and through commissions and acquisitions, has expanded significantly in recent years. He has curated a range of exhibitions, including A Time and Place. Two Centuries of Irish Social Life (2006), Thomas Roberts 1748-1777 (2009), Uniform (in collaboration with Jackie Nickerson, 2016) and Creating History. Stories of Ireland in Art (2016).

Brendan has written widely on Irish art, specialising in eighteenth and nineteenth century Irish art. His publications include Irish Paintings in the National Gallery of Ireland, vol. 1 (with Nicola Figgis, 2001), The Life and Work of Harry Jones Thaddeus 1860-1929 (2003) and Thomas Roberts 1748-1777. Landscape and Patronage in Eighteenth-century Ireland (with William Laffan, 2009). He is currently, with William Laffan, writing a monograph on Nathaniel Hone the Elder.

 

Adriaan E. Waiboer, Head of Collections and Research

Adriaan’s role involves delivering on the strategic priorities for the care and safeguarding of the national collection and developing ways to increase access to the collections, both onsite and online. He also provides leadership on the Gallery’s exhibitions, loans, acquisitions and research programmes. He was previously Head Curator (2016) and Curator of Northern European Art at the Gallery (since 2004). 

Adriaan has organised a number of exhibitions, among them Northern Nocturnes: Nightscapes in the Age of Rembrandt (2005) and Vermeer, Fabritius & De Hooch: Three Masterpieces from Delft (2009). In 2010–11, he curated the exhibition on Gabriel Metsu, which was followed in 2012 by the publication of his monograph with catalogue raisonné. More recently, Adriaan has curated and coordinated the exhibition Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Paintings: Inspiration and Rivalry, which is on view in the National Gallery of Ireland in June 2017.