14.75 by 21.50in. (37.5 by 54.6cm)

Title: ST. STEPHEN'S CHURCH (THE PEPPERCANISTER), MOUNT STREET, DUBLIN
Note: Born in Derry, Norah McGuinness studied at the Metropolitan School of Art, Dublin and at the Chelsea Polytechnic, London. Yeats thought highly of her work and commissioned her to provide the illustrations of his Stories of Red Hanrahan and the Secret Rose in 1927. In 1929, on the advice of Mainie Jellett, she went to Paris to study under André Lhote. Whilst she found Lhote’s cubist theories too rigid, she responded to the rich colours and heavy outlines in the work of other Parisian artists such as Matisse, Van Dongen and Vlaminck. She lived in London during the 1930s but returned to settle in Dublin in 1940 where she created the window display for Brown Thomas for many years. She was a founder member of the Irish Exhibition of Living Art in 1943, becoming its president in 1944. She was a regular exhibitor at the Waddington Galleries and also often provided designs for stage sets. In 1947 she had her first solo show at the Leicester Galleries with three more exhibitions following there. In 1950 McGuinness was chosen along with Nano Reid to represent Ireland at the Venice Biennale. She was elected an honorary member of the RHA in 1957 but resigned in 1969. Her retrospective exhibition at Trinity College Dublin in 1968 included over one hundred works, and her art is represented in all the major Irish public collections as well as in several important overseas collections such as the Joseph H. Hirschorn collection in New York.

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