Tuesday 18 September 2012

Quinnipiac's Hunger Museum to open next month


The Victim, by Rowan Gillespie, 1998
The Great Hunger Museum/Museam An Gorta Mór will open to the public at Quinnipiac University, Connecticut on 11 October.

The University's press release states that the museum offers 'a unique opportunity for people of all ages and backgrounds to explore the largely unrepresented, unspoken and unresolved causes and consequences of the Great Hunger, as well as to appreciate the art that it continues to inspire.'

The museum's collection focuses on the famine years from 1845-52, when blight destroyed virtually all of Ireland’s potato crops for consecutive years, and includes works by noted contemporary Irish artists including internationally-known sculptors John Behan, Rowan Gillespie and Eamonn O’Doherty, and contemporary visual artists Robert Ballagh, Alanna O’Kelly Brian Maguire and Hughie O’Donoghue.

Featured paintings also will include several important 19th and 20th‐century works by artists such as James Brenan, Daniel MacDonald, James Arthur O’Connor and Jack B. Yeats.

Museum programs, including tours of the collection, discussions, films, plays and concerts, are designed to educate the general public, scholars, researchers, artists and students about the richness of Irish culture and the high quality of its visual arts.

For more information, read the feature in today's Hartford Courant.