Applied Art
Even rarer in Ireland are examples of applied art in the deco style. Ireland produced no great designers in a deco style, with the exception of the really important designer Eileen Gray, who now has a world class reputation, but is still largely unknown in Ireland. Eileen Gray , was actually born in Ireland but was working abroad all her life and thus she was not really an influence on domestic production. Only the potter Kathleen Cox, who worked from 1929 to about 1935, seems to have been much influenced by Deco styles.
Cox, was a star pupil of sculptor Oliver Sheppard, a sculptor now largely forgotten by the public, even though he has produced one of the best known pieces of public sculpture in Ireland , the statue of legendary warrior Cuchulainn in the General Post Office in Dublin.
Sheppard taught at the National College of Art and he favoured a rather art nouveau style. Cox, however, turned to ceramics and produced some strongly coloured studio pottery bookends and angular small figures, to little commercial or popular success. She gave up pottery entirely and left Ireland in 1937. Her pieces are rare, one is on display at the National Museum in Dublin.
Irish art deco jewellery, glass and furniture may exist, but if so they are well kept secrets.
The art glass tradition of church glass was not at all influenced by deco themes, once again reflecting the conservative approach of the Catholic church and probably of the stained glass manufacturing firms too, in that private commissions or pieces created just to demonstrate skill do not appear to exist. In the twenties, the Beardsley like style of stained glass artist Harry Clark was considered very avant garde and there seems to have been little room for deco inspired glass.
The Dublin Gas Company Dublin showroom in Dolier Street has a number of etched glass panels above the door. These were intended to be back-lit. These survive, but due to alterations are fairly hard to see, and very hard to photograph.
There are some deco inspired carved stone panels on Government Buildings in Kildare Street by Ms G Hayes. The former Seafield-Gentex factory in Youghal Co.Cork, constructed post-war, has an incised stone carving by S Murphy which shows a scene of textile making.
Ireland did not accept designs for their new currency by renowned American art deco sculptor Paul Manship.
One small compensation for the absence of local deco items is that the National Gallery in Dublin has a nice collection of Maurice Marinot glass, by the French glassmaker, which has been recently rarely on display in the print room in the past few years. As the light was subdued here, the full beauty of the glass is not always obvious.
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