For many, Dublin is the land of Guinness beer, the majestic St. Patrick’s Cathedral or the setting of James Joyce’s most iconic novel, «Ulysses.» But Ireland’s capital is also home to some of Europe’s most fascinating museums, including The Hugh Lane Gallery, which houses one of the country’s most captivating collections of modern and contemporary art, both Irish and international.
Established in 1908 and considered one of the oldest museums in Ireland, The Hugh Lane Gallery houses works by Impressionist masters such as Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro and Berthe Morisot, alongside pieces by contemporary artists such as Agnes Martin, Niki de Saint Phalle, Joseph Beuys and Günther Uecker. Housed in the historic Charlemont House – a building dating back to 1763 that retains its original architectural essence – The Hugh Lane Gallery is located on Parnell Square, just minutes from the iconic O’Connell Bridge.
Before crossing the museum doors, a work by British artist Julian Opie surprises you from the esplanade: an LED light installation that portrays a female figure walking restlessly, in the characteristic minimalist style of the artist, famous for his collaboration with the group Blur. Among the highlights of the collection, the iconic studio of Francis Bacon stands out, moved piece by piece from London in 1998. Bacon, born in Dublin in 1909, left Ireland at the age of 16 to settle in the British capital, where he established himself as one of the great masters of figurative art of the 20th century. His studio, preserved as it was, offers an immersive experience: brushes, cut-out canvases, books, paint jars and photographs are distributed in a chaotic and vibrant mess, visible behind glass panels that allow a glimpse of the artist’s creative universe.
“I feel at ease here, in chaos, because chaos suggests images to me,” can be read on one of the walls, next to this space with a chaotic, turbulent and insane atmosphere, with brushes, acrylic jars, cut-out canvases, books, frames, drawings, photographs, torn pages and documents everywhere, and where one of the most important painters of his generation lived and worked until the day of his death.
The gallery also houses six unfinished paintings by Bacon, created between the 1950s and the last decades of his life, which show the evolution of his creative process, from the first strokes to the application of intense colours and expressive modelling.
The Hugh Lane Gallery is currently hosting two unmissable temporary exhibitions. The first, “More Power to You”, celebrates the life and work of Sarah Purser, a key figure in 19th-century Irish art and one of the museum’s founders. The exhibition, which runs until 5 January 2025, highlights her legacy as an artist, activist and collector, including portraits of figures such as Jane Barlow and the great poet WB Yeats. Sarah Purser (1848-1943) played a major role in the founding of the Hugh Lane Gallery and was instrumental in the current building becoming the permanent home of the museum.
The second exhibition, “La Grande Illusion” by celebrated Irish painter Brian Maguire, explores through a powerful set of paintings the fragility of human rights and resistance to social injustice. His works, created over the last decade, in settings as diverse as Ciudad Juárez, South Sudan, Aleppo and the Amazon, are an urgent call for social justice, but also an act of solidarity with families and communities in those regions he visited. This exhibition will remain on display until March 23, 2025.
With its mix of history, art and contemporary culture, The Hugh Lane Gallery is an essential space to discover another fascinating side of Dublin.