Art lovers came to view a collection of rarely seen work by celebrated Irish and international artists in Dublin this week.
"I'm trying to take major Irish artists and show them in context with major international artists to show that we shouldn't just think of them as Irish," said the art dealer, Theo Waddington.
"It's very good of Theo to see it that way," said Louis Le Brocquy, adding that Waddington's father, Victor, "also tried to do this with Jack Yeats but the fact remains that if you mention Yeats's work in France, Italy, Germany or the US, very few people could place him. It deserves to be on a level with much better known artists. It's very unjust," said Le Brocquy.
The show, in the OPW Atrium Gallery on St Stephen's Green, Dublin, also includes an artistic record of the Inuit peoples of northern Canada by John Reeves and lithographs of the Inuit by Matisse.
Also present at the opening of the show, which runs until Friday, November 21st, were artists Jackie Stanley and her husband, Campbell Bruce, London-based artist Albert Irvin with his wife, Betty, and Dr Peter McKenna, former master of the Rotunda Hospital with his wife, Viv.
Paul McGuinness picked Mainie Jellett as his favourite artist in the group because of her radicalism. Artist Anne Madden chose Matisse. Writers Anthony Cronin and Anne Haverty were also at the opening.
Fiachra Trench and his wife, jazz singer Carmel McCreagh, were also there, and were interested in particular in the works by William Orpen because, explained Trench, "he was my grand uncle".
Prices in the collection went from €480,000 for, The Immigrants by William Orpen and €275,00 for Buste de femme by Henri Matisse to €12,000 for Matisse's Trois têtes à l'amitie and €10,000 for Yeats's By Memory Inspired.