James McNeill Whistler: Star Attraction of the 1884 Dublin Sketching Club Exhibition (A look at the position of arts in Ireland leading up to the early twentieth century)

Philippa Halley
Trinity College Dublin
Department of History of Art and Architecture
2004
BA

Subject: Painting
Country: Ireland
Period: 19th Century

10,000 words

This dissertation is an analysis of the development of Irish art in the final two decades of the nineteenth century. The author focuses on the appearance of Whistler at the annual Dublin Sketching Club exhibition in 1884 and compares this event to the Royal Hibernian Academy’s annual exhibtion of the same year. The first chapter documents the systems and traditions in place in Irish art in the years leading up to 1884. The second chapter focuses on the Whistler exhibition and its overwhelming success, citing it as a landmark in the progress of Irish art. The third chapter deals with the new wave of young Irish artists that arose after this exhibition, namely Walter Frederick Osborne and Nathaniel Hone the Younger. The final chapter records the key figures that influenced and supported the Irish art scene, including John Quinn and Hugh Lane.

Irish Georgian Society

Education Theses Register

James McNeill Whistler: Star Attraction of the 1884 Dublin Sketching Club Exhibition (A look at the position of arts in Ireland leading up to the early twentieth century)