PAUL FUNGE:PAUL FUNGE, who has died aged 67, was an innovative artist, teacher and arts festival organiser who believed strongly that the arts should be accessible to all.
Funge’s lifelong commitment to the arts began while still a student with his first one-man exhibition during the Wexford Opera Festival.
He believed passionately that art was not for an elite. He was a strong advocate of decentralisation of the arts. A native of Gorey, Co Wexford, he studied in the National College of Art and Design under Seán Keating, Maurice MacGonigal and John Kelly. In 1967 he was awarded an Italian government scholarship to study at the Academia dei Belli Arti in Florence.
In 1972 when he was teaching at the college, he and his teaching colleagues found themselves at odds with college authorities over the issue of assessment criteria and ensuing procedures. The dispute led to the temporary closure of the college and students set up an alternative in Crowe Street.
Although the issue was resolved, Funge accepted the offer of a lectureship post in Santa Barbara and he reluctantly left Ireland for a time. In 1970, he founded the Gorey Arts Festival, regarded as a milestone in the development of the arts in Ireland. When appointed the first regional arts officer for the midwest region, he established the Belltable Arts Centre in Limerick, as well as assisting in the founding of the Galway Arts Festival, which continues to move from strength to strength.
Among his many interests was theatrical set design which led him to design sets for the Lantern theatre and for productions at the Gaiety and the Gate. He was appointed art director of the Waterford School of Art and Design, a position he held until his appointment as inspector of arts in Ireland for the Department of Education.
He was guest professor in a number of eminent universities including the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the University of Amsterdam.
Critics have had difficulty categorising the artist and Funge himself disliked such labelling although he did accept the terms “figurative” and “contemporary figurative”.
As well as a painter of landscapes, he was an acclaimed portrait painter and numbered among his sitters government ministers, judges, academics as well as stars from the world of music and theatre, including U2’s Adam Clayton and the playwright Frank McGuinness.
The critic Brian Fallon once observed that as a portrait painter “he was one of the country’s best”.
He is survived by his brothers, Joe and Michael, sisters-in-law, Ann and Lynn, niece and nephews and special friends Floortje and Paddy.
Paul Funge: born January 25th, 1944; died February 21st, 2011