Sir, – With Fintan O’Toole’s kind acknowledgement (Weekend, January 26th) of my and Michael O’Doherty’s role in the acquisition and display of the Eileen Gray collection at Collins Barracks, I hope I will be allowed to pay tribute to others deserving of gratitude for the part they played in this proud chapter in the National Museum’s history.
First, there is the late John Teahan, who was the first person I heard talking of the importance of Eileen Gray. He had made constant contact with her in the late 1970s but wasn’t encouraged by the then powers that be in the NMI. Naturally, he was bitterly disappointed but he had sown the seed. Then there is Alan Smith, an OPW architect who long championed an exhibition of her work and who had made contact with the German Architectural Archive in Frankfurt where Gray’s material was on temporary show when I first saw it.
With the encouragement of the Germans, I was able to purchase the collection but only with the then strong support of a convinced minister, Síle de Valera, and her departmental colleague, Chris Flynn, who helped me to get the items in question independently authenticated by the Victoria and Albert Museum. The latter pair subsequently helped me acquire the related archive which will be published shortly by Jennifer Goff of the NMI, who is set to become one of the world’s great experts on Grey.
The architect Barbara Kenny did a wonderful display scheme and the Pompidou Centre was kind enough to loan some top-class items. Now, I understand, we are returning the compliment in Paris. – Yours, etc,