When Claire d'Arcy opened her solo exhibition this week, it was one of those pan-European happenings which occur frequently these days - Claire is Irish-born but lives in Monaco and her show is in London.
A true renaissance woman, Claire earned her stripes as a journalist for Harpers & Queen and The Irish Times, converted to the artistic life and manages to fit poetry in there somewhere, too. She gives frequent poetry readings in the Princess Grace Irish Library in Monte Carlo of both her own and other Irish poets' work - Yeats, Heaney and John Montague (her mother's first cousin) are particular favourites.
Claire moved to Monte Carlo in 1982 with her husband Julian d'Arcy, who is financial adviser to the Monaco-based millionaire, Albert Abella. However, her ties with Ireland are still strong, particularly as her twin boys are boarders in King's Hospital School. Indeed, the guest list for the opening night of her solo show in Marzella Gore's Zella gallery in London on Tuesday had a distinctly Irish tint. There was historian Roy Foster and his wife Aisling; film director Thaddeus O'Sullivan; singer Bob Geldof, whose sister Lynn Geldof is also a close friend of Claire's, and publisher Colin Smythe. Colin bought the presses of the Dolmen Press and now publishes all the Princess Grace Irish Library publications in Monte Carlo.