Dublin Gallery Presents Portraits On Paper

Idealised heads feature alongside truthful self-portraits, literary likenesses and caricatures, while modern portraits display a more experimental approach.

The exhibition has drawn on portraits from the Gallery's prints & drawings collection, complemented by a selection of works on loan from the National Galleries of Scotland, The Barber Institute of Fine Arts (University of Birmingham), The National Self-Portrait Collection of Ireland (University of Limerick) and private collections. It includes works by Antonio Pollaiuolo (Portrait of a Young Man, 1470s), Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (La belle Ferronnière, c.1802-6), Dante Gabriel Rossetti (Jane Burden, 1858), and Paul Klee (Ghost of a Genius, no.10, 1922), as well as portraits Irish artists; Adam Buck, Muriel Brandt, Patrick Hennessy, Michael Kane, Sean Keating and Brian Bourke.

The spontaneity with which an artist manages to capture a likeness quickly is unique to portraits on paper, a quality not always found in a finished painting.

Catching a Likeness will be on display in the Print Gallery until 9 December. Admission is free. An accompanying illustrated brochure, edited by Niamh MacNally, is available from the Gallery Shop (€2). A series of talks will take place throughout September. -- www.nationalgallery.ie