Ann M. Stewart, Irish Art Societies and Sketching Clubs: Index of Exhibitors 1870-1980. Vol 1. A-L; Vol.2 M-Z, Four Courts Press, Dublin, 1997.
Why am I suggesting that you should delve into these two volumes which consist of seven hundred and seventy-eight pages of closely printed lists of exhibitions, organised alphabetically by the name of the artist? What, you might ask, could be more boring?
Well, consider the following. If you were English, Scottish, or Welsh, the art establishment looked after its artists. You can go to the libraries of the Royal Academy, the National Gallery, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the British Museum (all in London) and their equivalents in Wales and Scotland, and you will find that proper records have been kept at least as far back as the early nineteenth-century. Not only did they list the vast majority of exhibitions, but their catalogues were collected, listed, and archived. Not so in Ireland.
Believe it or not, the first time it occurred to anyone to systematically collect Irish catalogues was in 1972 when the magnificent Eddie Murphy, then librarian at NCAD, realised that there was a problem and the NIVAL archive at NCAD was founded.
Equally late in the day, Ann M. Stewart, the then librarian at the National Gallery in Dublin, decided to do what had already been done across the water: to index all known art exhibitions in Ireland. She produced an index to the Royal Hibernian Society exhibitions (1826-1979), an index to Irish Art Loans (1765-1927), as well as the index under review.
(l-r) Font cover of Irish Art Societies & Sketching Clubs Vol. 1; a Belfast Ramblers Club catalogue from 1888; cover of Fifty Irish Portraits also by Ann M. Stewart
Let us say that you came across a largely unknown Irish painter like Joseph Poole Addey. If you go to his name in Volume One, you will find six pages on him, in which are listed every exhibition he took part in between 1886 and 1921. For each exhibition you are told the name of the exhibiting society (e.g. Belfast Art Society, or Dublin Sketching Club), the date of the exhibition, and you are given a list of the works exhibited (titles, catalogue number, price, medium and, where known, the address of the artist).
The range of sketching clubs and societies covered is a broad one. For Northerners, you can follow the various iterations of the Royal Ulster Academy (RUA), starting with the Belfast Ramblers’ Club (c. 1879-1885), which then became the Belfast Ramblers’ Sketching Club (c.1884-1890), then mutated into the Belfast Art Society (1890-1930), then the Ulster Academy of Arts (1930-50) before finally becoming the Royal Ulster Academy from 1950.
The Watercolour Society of Ireland (founded 1870 and still going) is covered, as are the major annual exhibitions such as the Oireachtas (founded 1905), The Irish Exhibition of Living Art (1943 f.) and Independent Artists (1960 f.).
There are gaps. Only exhibitions which ran for an extended period of time and where a reasonable run of catalogues was available were included.
But, put simply, these two volumes by Ann M. Stewart are a huge treasure-trove of information not easily found anywhere else.
A small word of warning though. As anyone who has ever compiled an index knows, it is slow, monotonous work and, inevitably, mistakes will creep in. I found one when I wrote a book on Patrick Pye. and when I recently read a book on Mabel Trevor, its author pointed out another mistake. But these are very rare. To compile books like these is a gargantuan effort and a labour of love. So, use them!
Brian McAvera, May 2026
Copies of these volumes are available in the NI Visual Art Research Library & Archive at the Golden Thread Gallery. NIVARLA items in the rare and special collection will be available to view by appointment. We will share more information on how to access and use NIVARLA soon!
The Northern Ireland Visual Art Research Library & Archive is supported by the Ampersand Foundation, with many books and archive items donated and on loan from the McAvera & Walker Library.
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