Press release 24/10/2017

Minister for Culture, Heather Humphreys TD, opens the exhibition Frederic William Burton: For the Love of Art
 

Minister for Culture, Heather Humphreys TD, today (Tuesday, 24 October) launched the exhibition Frederic William Burton: For the Love of Art at a reception attended by over 400 guests in the National Gallery of Ireland.

The exhibition celebrates the life and work of Frederic William Burton (1816-1900), the distinguished Irish artist and influential director of the National Gallery, London. 

Minister for Culture, Heather Humphreys TD: "2017 has been a momentous year for the National Gallery of Ireland, consolidated by the reopening of the Gallery’s historic wings after six years of major refurbishment. Following on from the success of Caravaggio and Vermeer, the Gallery brings together another extraordinary exhibition featuring the work of Irish-born artist Frederic William Burton who is held in special esteem by the Gallery and its visitors. I would like to congratulate the Gallery on another wonderful achievement and wish them every success with the exhibition".

Minister Humphreys congratulated the exhibition’s curator Dr Marie Bourke (former Head of Education in the Gallery) on assembling the exhibition of over 100 works, with the support of Anne Hodge, Curator of Prints and Drawings. 

Guests were entertained throughout the evening with a special ‘appearance’ of Hellelil and Hildebrand from Burton's watercolour The Meeting on the Turret Stairs, performed by Justine Doswell and Rory Dignam and choreographed by Muirne Bloomer. Hellelil and Hildebrand were dressed in replica costumes from the painting, designed by Vicky Marr of the Grafton Academy Dublin. Music from Thomas Moore’s repertoire was performed by Sandra Oman, soprano; Owen Gilhooly, tenor; and Niall Kinsella on piano. 

The exhibition explores all aspects of Burton’s career as an artist, including his years in Germany, and in London working alongside the Pre-Raphaelite circle. It also provides insights into his tenure as director of the National Gallery, London. Burton was responsible for extending the London gallery, as well as overseeing the acquisition by purchase, gift and bequest of 500 works including Leonardo’s Virgin of the Rocks (about 1491/2-9 and 1506-8), Botticelli’s Venus and Mars (1483), Holbein’s The Ambassadors (1533), and many other significant masterpieces. 

The works in the show are drawn from public and private collections in Ireland and overseas: National Gallery of Ireland, British Museum, National Gallery London, Victoria & Albert Museum, National Portrait Gallery, London, Yale Centre for British Art, and other international public and private collections.

Burton’s best known watercolours — the romantic Hellelil and Hildebrand, the Meeting on the Turret Stairs (1864), The Aran Fisherman’s Drowned Child (1841), and his celebrated portrait of the novelist George Eliot — are among more than 70 works by Burton that are displayed alongside paintings and drawings by his contemporaries John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones, Ford Maddox Brown, Daniel Maclise and William Mulready. The exhibition also features a number of artworks that Burton acquired for the National Gallery, London including Botticelli’s Mystic Nativity, Veronese’s Dream of Saint Helena and Claude Lorrain’s A View in Rome. 

Dr Marie Bourke, curator of the exhibition: "Frederic William Burton was recognised as an individual of artistic excellence and intellectual power in his lifetime, and acknowledged as one of the most significant Irish cultural figures of the nineteenth century. Yet, as an artist who features consistently in surveys of Irish and British art, and whose Meeting on the Turret Stairs is one of the most popular artworks in the National Gallery of Ireland, his contribution as an artist and museum director remains undervalued. It is hoped that this exhibition will encourage a serious reassessment of the achievements of this outstanding cultural figure".
 

NOTES

Exhibition Dates
Frederic William Burton: For the Love of Art
National Gallery of Ireland 
25 October 2017-14 January 2018 
RTÉ Supporting the Arts.

Curator
Dr Marie Bourke is an art and cultural historian, and former Keeper and Head of Education at the National Gallery of Ireland. She is the author of a number of books, including The Story of Irish Museums 1790-2000 (Cork University Press). She served as Adjunct Professor in UCD School of Art History and Cultural Policy, and as Chair of the Irish Museums Association. 

Tickets
Online ticket booking www.nationalgallery.ie 
€15 & €10 conc. €5 for students. Free for Friends of the NGI, children under 16, and pre-booked school groups. Audio guide is free with ticket admission. 

Publication
An accompanying publication, Frederic William Burton: For the Love of Art, edited by Claire Crowley, with essay contributions by Dr Marie Bourke, Patrick Duffy, Alison FitzGerald, Elena Greer, Anne Hodge and Janet McLean, is available from the Gallery Shop (€15.95pb). 
 
Education & Public Programme
The Gallery’s Education Department have organised an extensive public programme tailored around the Burton exhibition comprising tours, talks, workshops, watercolour courses, dance, storytelling, and courses to complement the schools’ curriculum. Pick up a programme booklet from the Gallery or download from the website. An introductory talk on the exhibition by Dr Marie Bourke will take place in the Gallery’s Lecture Theatre on Sunday 29 October, at 3pm (free). 
 

About the artist

Frederic William Burton was born in Co. Wicklow in 1816, the son of an amateur painter, and spent his early childhood in Corofin, Co. Clare. His childhood, according to his friend the novelist George Eliot, was ‘saddened by much trouble, his health miserably delicate’, not helped by an injury to his right arm that resulted in his painting with his left hand. However, he was precociously talented and, following training in Dublin, built a considerable reputation as a portrait, landscape, and narrative painter, showing work in Ireland and abroad. 

Burton visited Munich in 1844, where he reputedly made copies and restored paintings for the King of Bavaria. He returned to spend seven years in Germany (1851-58). In 1858 Burton settled in London where he established his career showing work at the Old Watercolour Society (now the Royal Watercolour Society) and at the Royal Academy of Arts. He greatly admired the work of the artists of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, founded in 1848, and established friendships with Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones, as well as with the novelist George Eliot, among many leading arts figures of the day.  

In 1874 Burton gave up painting completely when he was appointed director of the National Gallery, London by Prime Minister William Gladstone. Between 1874 and 1894, aided by the sales of the great English aristocratic collections in the 1880s, Burton acquired over 500 works by French, Spanish, British, Flemish, Dutch and Italian masters, thereby laying the foundations of the National Gallery’s collection. He remained as director for 20 years before he retired in 1894.