National Gallery of Ireland
Drawings and Watercolours

Irish Art Exhibitions

Beech Trees at Norbury Park Surrey
by JMW Turner.

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For a list of the Top 10 works
by artists from Ireland, see:
Most Expensive Irish Paintings.

National Gallery of Ireland
Drawings, Watercolours, Works on Paper

The National Gallery of Ireland houses a large collection of watercolours, pastels, drawings, and prints - including a quantity of engraving, etching, mezzotints, lithographs, and other forms of printmaking. These works exemplify numerous national styles in the history of art, up to the mid-twentieth century. Among the 8,000 or so works, are finished landscape watercolour paintings, pencil sketches, preparatory studies for paintings, portraits in all media as well as topographical and architectural drawings. Highlights include: a collection of over 30 watercolours by JMW Turner, Old Master drawings by Italian, French and Dutch masters, works by Degas and Picasso, and the Jack B. Yeats collection.

In addition, the NGI houses eighteenth century mezzotint portrait prints, as well as a representative collection of miniature artworks by Irish, British and continental artists covering the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth century.

IRISH ART GALLERIES
For reviews of the best museums
of arts in Ireland, see:
- National Gallery of Ireland
- National Museum of Ireland
- Irish Museum of Modern Art
- Hugh Lane Gallery Dublin
- Chester Beatty Library
- Trinity College Dublin Library
- National Self-Portrait Collection
- The Hunt Museum (Limerick)
- Ulster Museum.

In the Print Gallery of the National Gallery of Ireland, varying exhibitions of artworks on paper are held throughout the year. The Print Gallery is equipped with special display cases with low level lighting to protect the works from over-exposure to light. Only a small fraction of the NGI's 8,000 paper-based works are viewable: most are kept in protective storage. However, researchers may study other works from the collection in the NGI study room, known as the Diageo Print Room.

European Drawings and Watercolours: Highlights

- Fishing Boats on Folkestone Beach, by Joseph Mallord William Turner
- Jane Burden as Queen Guinevere (1858) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
- Hellelil and Hildebrand (1864) by Frederick William Burton
- Nocturne in Grey and Gold — Piccadilly (1881–83) by James Whistler
- Two Ballet Dancers in a Dressing Room by Edgar Degas
- Two Dancers (1925) by Pablo Picasso

Irish Drawings and Watercolours: Highlights

Among the fine examples of Irish art are:

• Irish watercolour landscapes from the eighteenth and nineteenth century, including works by Nathaniel Hone the Younger, James Arthur O'Connor, George Petrie and James Malton.

• A collection of sketches and designs executed in the Dublin An Túr Gloine stained glass studio cooperative, founded by the portraitist and stained glass painter, Sarah Purser in 1903.

• A series of designs and sketches and designs from the Irish abstract artist and figure painter, Mainie Jellett. A series of early 20th century views of Dublin by the Irish topographical artist, Flora Mitchell.

• As part of the Yeats Collection, the NGI displays a collection of Jack B. Yeats sketchbooks and sketches, along with access to the artist's memorabilia and library.

More Details

See also:
European Paintings at the NGI
Irish Painting at the NGI
Sculpture at the NGI

For more information about watercolour paintings and drawings housed at the National Gallery of Ireland, telephone: 01-661-5133.

World's Greatest Art Galleries

For details, see: Best Art Museums.

• For details of other Leinster fine art exhibitions and collections, see: Irish Art Galleries and Museums.
• For details of the world's best museums, see: Homepage.
• For more about drawings and watercolours in Ireland, see: Irish Art Guide.

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