Arts
Council Collection Artists
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Head of James Joyce (1978)
Louis Le Brocquy (b.1916, Dublin)
Watercolour on Paper
H: 38, W: 34 cms
Louis le Brocquy is one of the most internationally renowned of Irish artists. Well known for his concentration on the human head, his unconventional portraits strive to convey something of the essence of being. He has focused much on Irish literary figures. le Brocquy studied chemistry at Trinity College, Dublin and worked in the family firm, the Greenmount Oil Company until 1938. He left the family business to become a painter and studied in England and Europe but is essentially self-taught. He taught at London’s Central School of Arts and Crafts from 1947-54 and at the Royal College of Art from 1955-58. In 1956 le Brocquy took first prize at the Venice Biennale. He received honorary doctorates from Trinity College, Dublin in 1962 and the National University of Ireland in 1968. In 1996 there was a major retrospective of his work at the Irish Museum of Modern Art and in 1998 he was awarded the Glen Dimplex prize for sustained contribution to the arts in Ireland.
