LIMERICK’S artistic legacy is one of the finest in the country and deserves to be widely known, according to the director of the city’s Hunt Museum.
Dr Hugh Maguire was speaking in advance of the opening of the Museum’s winter exhibition, ‘Limerick: My city My Home’ on this Friday, November 28. The exhibition, which will be launched by Education Minister Jan O’Sullivan will run until next February.
The wealth of visual records for the city is most significant and especially from the sixteenth century onwards artists and cartographers captured the strategic, economic and architectural importance of the city.
Limerick was considered very much within a wider European context and later its architectural embellishment and ambition linked it with tastes in Great Britain and subsequently the scale and breadth of the British Empire.
The Museum’s winter exhibition is hosted in conjunction with the University of Limerick’s Glucksman Library and gives visitors an insight into the wealth of holdings, nationally and locally of Limerick visual material from sixteenth century maps to contemporary photography.
According to Dr Maguire the exhibition can only touch on what’s available and whet the visitor’s appetite.
“The available budget and the limitations of a gallery space only allow us a sampling of the beautiful imagery held in the region itself and in national collections including the National Library of Ireland and the National Gallery of Ireland.
“The exhibition especially celebrates the Norton, Leonard, MacAnally and Lysaght collections in our sister institution – the Glucksman Library at the University of Limerick with whom we are sharing this exhibition. Such collections as those accumulated by Fr. John Leonard highlight a deep affection for the city”, he said.
The exhibition is open daily and admission is free.
