Tuesday evening was a real homecoming for Brian Cronin in more ways than one. After 13 years of living and working in New York, the Dublin-born illustrator returned to attend the opening of his first Irish exhibition in IMMA.
Brian, whose work has appeared in all sorts of publications from Time magazine to the Washington Post to the New Yorker, made the event a real family occasion and arrived at the museum with his wife, Siuin Ni Cheallaigh, a textile designer; his father Tom Cronin and his brother Paul Cronin, who is a research scientist now working in Tucson, Arizona.
Other folk at the gallery included Maurice Foley, chairman of IMMA and Declan McGonagle, its director, as well as two board members - Jim Dorgan and art historian Dorothy Walker. At least one of the artists shortlisted for the Glen Dimplex Award, Janet Mullarney, was also there. Shay Cleary, the architect who originally converted IMMA from hospital to gallery, was there with his wife Lulu Lazar, while Noel Sheridan of NCAD arrived with his daughter, Japonica. Elizabeth Mayes, former assistant editor with the Irish Arts Review, is now hard at work on a tome entitled A History of Women In Trinity College. Other people in the crowd included freelance curator Sean McCrum and Mairead Dunlevy of the National Museum.
Hot news of the night was about Ciaran MacGonigal's new appointment. Word is the director of the RHA Gallagher Gallery will shortly take up the directorship of the Hunt Museum in Limerick.