With the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1922, Sarah Purser, the eminent painter and art activist, saw the need to support the art collections of Ireland, north and south. Already she had established her reputation as a portrait painter and manager of An Tur Gloine the stained glass studio. This was a period of great economic difficulty after the War of Independence and Civil War when the state was not able to support the visual arts. She wanted to continue Hugh Lane’s work of building up the Dublin Municipal Gallery (now the Hugh Lane Gallery) by acquiring continental and British modern art, and to reclaim the disputed bequest of continental paintings left by Lane when he died in the Luisitania sinking. Along with a group of other art lovers and philanthropists she at the age of 76 founded the FNCI on 14 February 1924 at a public meeting in the Royal Irish Academy. Its aims were ‘to secure works of art and objects of historic interest or importance for the national or public collections of Ireland by purchase, gift or bequest, and to further their interest in other analogous or incidental ways.’ These remain the aims of the FNCI. Sarah Purser was the driving force from 1924 to 1938.
She attracted support from a wide cross-section of people with a range of different political and religious loyalties. The first president of the FNCI was the Earl of Granard. From its foundation it had leading Irish cultural figures on its governing council, including the painters Dermod O’Brien, George Russell and the art historian Walter Strickland. Other early members included W.B.Yeats, G.B.Shaw, O.St.John Gogarty and Thomas Bodkin. By the 1930s and 1940s it included among its members the painters May Guinness, Eva Hamilton, Mainie Jellett, and the scholars Francoise Henry, C.P.Curran, George Furlong, Ada Leask, Constantia Maxwell and Thomas MacGreevy. The FNCI drew its support from collectors, artists, scholars and art lovers in general. Subscriptions from members as well as bequests of works of art and cash enabled the FNCI to acquire and to present works of art to the public galleries of Ireland, north and south. Sarah Purser, Mainie Jellett, C.P.Curran and Evie Hone all personally bequeathed work through the FNCI. It always had an all island policy in its giving.
To attract more members, the FNCI from the 1930s began to organize visits to country houses such as Beaulieu, Castletown, Bantry House, Derrynane, Howth Castle, Powerscourt House, Killeen and Dunsany Castles and other private collections. It also provided receptions in the Hugh Lane Gallery where it then held its council meetings. It invited well-known professional speakers on art such as Kenneth Clark, Eric Newton and John Rothenstein from Britain, to address its members. These lectures and visits provided opportunities for art lovers to meet one another at a time when art lectures were few and many country houses were still in private hands and inaccessible. The events contributed educationally to a growing understanding of the fine and decorative arts among its members and to build an audience for the visual arts in Ireland. In its early decades the FNCI was unique in Ireland as other museum Friends organizations did not yet exist. In recent years it has continued its sociable practice by having an annual festive lunch near Christmas.
In its early decades the FNCI mainly supported the Hugh Lane Gallery which has received more gifts (157) than any other institution. From the 1920s it also supported the National Gallery, the National Museum, the National Library and the Belfast Art Gallery (now Ulster Museum). After the Second World War, with the development of the regional museums run by the local authorities, the FNCI extended its support to them, as did the Arts Council established in 1951. The FNCI helped to build up many regional art collections, principally in the public institutions in Cork, Limerick, Waterford, Sligo, Drogheda and Kilkenny. In the twenty-first century it extended its support to the new Waterford Treasures Museum, the Irish Museum of Modern Art and the Irish Architectural Archive in whose rooms the society holds its council meetings. The society had concentrated on continental art in presentations to the Hugh Lane true to the intentions of Sarah Purser, but in other galleries and museums it mainly presented Irish art in keeping with the character of their collections. A selection of some of the finest examples of work presented by the FNCI was shown in an exhibition in the RHA and Hugh Lane Gallery to mark its 75th anniversary in 1999 opened by its patron President MacAleese. Since so much of the work presented by the FNCI during the past century was of the fine and decorative arts of Ireland, this has facilitated the wide diffusion of knowledge of the heritage of Irish visual culture in the national and regional institutions.
As part of its desire to promote modern art in the 1930s, 1940s the FNCI organized a loan exhibitions of French modern art in 1935 and others in 1944 and in 1947. One modern art acquisition led to a major art controversy when the Art Advisory Committee of the Hugh Lane Gallery refused to accept the offer of George Rouault’s painting Christ and the Soldier in 1942 which went to Maynooth College instead, although eventually it was accepted by the Gallery. The Hugh Lane Gallery also refused to accept Reclining Figure by Henry Moore when offered by the FNCI in 1954. Those were years of controversy over modernism in art.
The 1950s and 1960s were busy and important years in the FNCI with James White as secretary from 1956 to 1969 and as president later. He provided great leadership especially as he was by turns Director of the Hugh Lane (1960-1964) and of the National Gallery (1964-1980) as well as a member of the Arts Council as were other members of the FNCI. Some of the most important public figures of the period were members of the council, notably Sir Alfred Beit, Sir Basil Goulding, Sir Arthur Chester Beatty, Lord Killanin, Erskine Childers and Cearball ODalaigh. Other notable members of the council included Derek Hill, John Hunt, Anne Crookshank and Carmencita Hedermann. The Presidents of Ireland since Sean T.O’Kelly have been patrons of the FNCI.
The FNCI celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1974 with exhibitions of selected works presented by the Friends to the Municipal Gallery and other galleries by Sarah Purser, the Society’s founder. These were organised by the Curator, Ethna Waldron and Dr. Elizabeth Fitzpatrick (née Purser), the Hon. Treasurer. The Friends were rewarded with exemption from income tax (being a charity) and a moderately optimistic response to their proposals on Capital Gains and Wealth Tax, particularly where private individuals were concerned. James White, by now a Vice-President of the Friends, gave a lecture in 1975 commemorating the centenary of Sir Hugh Lane. In 1977 Ciarán MacGonigal, who had been chairing a sub-committee drawing up a detailed report on the future rôle of the Friends, took over as Honorary Secretary.
In 1984, its 60th anniversary was celebrated by the erection of a plaque denoting the original Municipal Gallery outside the Earl of Clonmel’s fine Georgian house in Harcourt Street, the commissioning of an intricately detailed drawing of Clonmel House for graphic reproduction as a logo by Michael Craig, the well-known stamp designer, and a reprint of the catalogue of the Gallery’s original collection in 1908. This was launched at a reception at Charlemont House. Events culminated in the presentation of a major painting by the Australian-Irish artist, Sidney Nolan, Ned Kelly by the River, at an A.G.M. addressed by James White at the Royal Irish Academy.
The FNCI marked its 75th anniversary in 1999 with an exhibition and accompanying publication. Held in the RHA Gallagher Gallery, the exhibition comprised a selection of art and artefacts which have been donated to galleries and museums throughout the whole of Ireland. The Friends were grateful to them for lending back the works which constituted the exhibition which had been organised by treasurer, Aidan O’Flanagan, together with the Councils exhibition sub-committee, Dr.Thomas Ryan PPRHA and Dr. James White.
Among the significant landmarks of the first two decades of the 21 century was the depositing of the FNCI archives in the National Irish Visual Arts Library (NIVAL) at the National College of Art and Design where they are open to researchers.
To mark the centenary of the FNCI in 2024 a series of exhibitions have been planned around Ireland in Waterford, Limerick, Drogheda, Sligo, Kilkenny, Clonmel, and in Dublin at the Irish Architectural Archive and the National Library; other institutions are also marking the centenary in different ways. We are grateful for the cooperation of the various curators who have organized these exhibitions. An important development for the future is the new website designed by Studio Unthink, made possible by a grant from the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. I would also like to express my thanks to the members of the council for their contribution to the organization of the centenary, notably Dr Marie Bourke, Anne Kearney Farrelly, John Kelly, June Lattimore and Colum O’Riordan. I would also like to thank Dermott Barrett for compiling and editing this publication and to Dr Audrey Nicholls for earlier research on the catalogue of gifts since 1999.
