Louis Le Brocquy - Art Collection

Career Spanning Some Seventy Years

Louis Le Brocquy was an Irish painter born in Dublin in 1916 and his career spanned some seventy years until his death in 2012. Le Brocquy was a self-taught painter who studied the works of the Old Masters such as Velázquez and Goya and his earlier works prove his artistic ability to paint in the academic tradition of these Old Masters. From 1939 Le Brocquy’s practice shifted towards a more deeper, psychological exploration of the human condition. By utilising the human figure itself, isolating it and abstracting it, he conveyed themes of human isolation within contemporary society.

View ‘Human Image’ within the Collection

Human Image by Louis Le Brocquy

One of the Most Prominent Painters in Irish Modern Art

Le Brocquy is widely acclaimed as one of the most prominent painters in Irish modern art, achieving critical acclaim for his unique approach to portraiture, focusing solely on the head he re-imagined the possibilities and overcame limitations of the genre. Within these portraits Le Brocquy wished to capture not only the person’s physical presence but also their spiritual complexity and shared past.

“Enter that box, enter behind the billowing curtain of the face and you have the whole landscape of the spirit”.

– Louis Le Brocquy

His work received many accolades in his career and in 1956, he represented Ireland at the Venice Biennale. The artist’s work is represented in numerous public collections from the Guggenheim, New York to the Tate Modern, London. In Ireland, he is the first and only living painter to be included during his lifetime in the Permanent Irish Collection of the National Gallery of Ireland.

Museum & State Collections

Albright Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, U.S.A.
Arts Club of Chicago, U.S.A.
Arts Council /An Chomhairle Ealaíon, Ireland
Arts Council, Hayward Gallery, Londo, U.K.
Arts Council of Northern Ireland, N. Ireland
Butler Gallery, Kilkenny, Ireland
British Council, U.K.
Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal
Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, U.S.A.
Centre de la Gravure de La Louvière, Belgium
Centre National d’Art Contemporain, Paris, France
City Art Gallery, Waterford, Ireland
City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima, Japan
Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio, U.S.A.
Contemporary Art Society, London, U.K.
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. U.S.A.
Council House, Wisconsin, U.S.A.
Crawford Municipal Art Gallery, Cork, Ireland
Department of Foreign Affairs, Dublin, Ireland
Detroit Institute of Art, Michigan, U.S.A.
Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, Ireland
Dublin City University (DCU), Ireland
Dundee Contemporary Arts – DCA, Scotland
Etat Français, Création Artistique, France
Ferrens Art Gallery, Kingston upon Hull, U.K.
Flint Institute of Arts, Michigan, U.S.A.
Fondation Maeght, St Paul, France
Fondation Van Gogh, Arles, France
Fort Worth Center, Texas, U.S.A.
Fred Jones Museum of Art, University of Oklahom, U.S.A.
French Institute London, U.K.
Glebe Gallery, Co Donegal, Ireland
Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield, U.K.
Guggenheim Museum, New York, U.S.A.
Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., U.S.A.
Ho-Am Museum, Seoul, Korea
Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland
Itami City Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan
James Joyce Foundation, Zurich, Switzerland
Kunsthaus, Zurich, Switzerland
Leeds City Art Gallery, U.K.
Model Arts and Niland Gallery, Sligo, Ireland
Moravian Gallery, Brno, Czech Republic
Municipal Gallery, Darlington, U.K.
Municipal Gallery, Swindon, U.K.
Musée Cantini, Marseille, France
Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France
Musée de Nantes, France
Musée Picasso, Antibes, France
Museu de Arte Moderna – MAM. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura, Japan
National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, India
National Gallery of Ireland, Ireland
National Museum of Ireland, Ireland
National Self-Portrait Collection, Limerick, Ireland
Nelson Art Gallery, New Zealand
New York State Museum, U.S.A.
Office of Public Works, Dublin, Ireland
Pembroke College, Oxford, U.K.
Queen’s University, Belfast, U.K.
Rugby Art Gallery and Museum, U.K.
San Diego Museum of Art, U.S.A.
Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, U.S.A.
Tate, London, U.K.
Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland
Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy
Ulster Museum, Belfast , N. Ireland
University College Cork (UCC), Ireland
University College Dublin (UCD), Ireland
University of California, Berkeley Art Museum, U.S.A.
University of Limerick, Ireland
University of Warwick, U.K.
Vancouver Art Gallery, Canada
Vatican Museums, Rome, Italy
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, U.K.
Ville de Caen, Artothèque, France
Waterford Municipal Art Collection, Ireland

Official website with biographical details and texts discussing his artistic career:

http://www.anne-madden.com/LeBPages/lebrocquy.html

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