Mainie Jellett and the modern movement in Ireland

Abstract

Jellett and the Modern Movement in Ireland examines one of Ireland's most highly respected 20th-century exponents of Irish art. The book is being published to coincide with an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, which runs from 9th December 1991 to 28th February 1992. Virtually unknown outside her own country, Mainie Jellett created a modern movement based on Cubist Abstraction which revolutionised art in Ireland. She gathered round her a school of like-minded artists, and turned them into a powerful influence on painting, design and thought; she established a regular annual art exhibition for the showing of modern paintings and sculpture, and she developed a vital and positive attitude in the country towards art during a period of isolation, difficulty and political torpor. Jellett came from the school of Cubist Abstraction which was led in France by Albert Gleizes and which is still only partly understood and appreciated. In contrast with the slow development of abstract painting in Britain, she regularly exhibited and sold abstract works in Dublin for ten years before the same kind of work was shown in London. Bruce Arnold's examination of the work of Mainie Jellett raises questions about 20th-century painting, about the roots of abstraction, and about misconceptions over the history and later development of Cubism. He offers insights into Albert Gleizes and his followers which will undoubtedly provoke further debate and research.