Sir John Lavery: Passion and Politics

Sir John Lavery was one of the most famous celebrity portrait painters at the turn of the 20th century. He and his beautiful wife Hazel, who was born in Chicago, were the original celebrity couple in London society where John enjoyed huge patronage from the British establishment. They counted Winston Churchill among their friends and Hazel, herself an artist, taught him to paint.

Sir John Lavery donated a substantial number of works to The Hugh Lane when his wife Hazel died in 1935. Previously, in 1929, he donated a large collection of work to the then Belfast Museum and Art Gallery, now the Ulster Museum. These two donations to the North and South of the ‘Island of Ireland’ provide a unique insight into that turbulent period of our history. It is one of the most singular and significant historical records of the period and is at the heart of this exhibition, Sir John Lavery: Passion and Politics. The exhibition includes film and archive material, never shown in public exhibition before, that provide insights into the social and political context in which Lavery was painting. Passion and Politics documents the lives of Sir John and Hazel Lavery and their involvement in a newly shaped Ireland, a partitioned Ireland, which had only recently been formalised at the time of his gift.

John Lavery’s passion for his wife is steadfast throughout his career. She was his muse. As her fame and reputation grew Hazel became an inspiration for others. As a media conscious couple, they saw the advantage of press attention and used it to the full. They contrived a celebrity cult status unprecedented in society of that time and Lavery’s portraits of pre and post war England is redolent of the life of the privileged classes. His Irish oeuvre however is centred mainly on historic events and religious, political and social subjects.

Central to this exhibition is the large triptych entitled The Madonna of the Lakes, which Lavery donated to the church in which he had been baptised: St Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church, Belfast. The work is based on a tableau vivant that depicts Hazel as the Madonna and consolidates her iconic status. Commissioned by the Irish Free State Government to design the new bank notes, Lavery used Hazel as his model for Kathleen Ni Houlihan. The original painting for this image is on view in this exhibition.

Another highlight of the exhibition is High Treason, Court of Criminal Appeal: the Trial of Roger Casement, a large painting of one of the great miscarriages of justice from that period. Lavery paints the court room scene where Sir Roger Casement made his appeal against his sentencing for treason for attempting to bring arms from Germany to Ireland in support of the 1916 Rising. This work was an extremely brave undertaking for an artist whose livelihood was derived primarily from patronage by the British establishment.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue with new research and essay by Sinéad McCoole, author of Hazel: A Life of Lady Lavery.

Curated by Sinéad McCoole
Assisted by Michael Dempsey

Profile

Born in Belfast in 1965, Ronnie Hughes studied at the University of Ulster, Belfast, receiving an MA in Fine Art in 1989. He has had numerous solo exhibitions throughout Ireland and beyond (including Butler Gallery, Goethe Institute, Ormeau Baths Gallery, Pulse Miami, Rubicon Gallery, Sirius Arts Centre, Steve Turner Los Angeles and, most recently, ‘Isobar’ at the MAC Belfast) and has participated in many group exhibitions worldwide.

Hughes’ work has been written about extensively and he has received a multitude of awards including a one-year residency in New York (PS1, 1990-91) and three-month residencies at Banff Arts Center, Canada (1994) and Bemis Arts Center, Nebraska (1997). In 2006 he was awarded a two-month residency at the ‘Albers Foundation’ in Connecticut and a one-month residency at the Vermont Studio Center.
Hughes’ work is held in many public and corporate collections, including both Irish Arts Councils and the Irish Museum of Modern Art. He has lived in County Sligo since 1995 when he began lecturing in Fine Art at the Institute of Technology Sligo.

Irish Free State banknotes, © courtesy of Central Bank of Ireland

John Lavery, Sir Winston Churchill, 1915. Collection Hugh Lane Gallery. © by courtesy of Felix Rosenstiel’s Widow & Son Ltd., London

E.O. Hoppé, photograph of Hazel Lavery, c.1914. © E.O.Hoppé Estate