merrion street

Jimmy Deenihan, TD, Minister for the Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht today will launch an exhibition from the archive of the late Dorothy Walker at the NCAD’s National Irish Visual Arts Library (NIVAL). Dorothy Walker was one of Ireland’s leading art critics of the late 20

century and she was a champion of the work of Irish artists and of modernisation and conceptual art in Ireland from the 1960s on.

Entitled "More Adventurous Thinking..." the Archive contains 36 boxes of correspondence, manuscripts and institutional records which document her critical writings and her involvement and support of artists, writers and arts organisations.

Speaking in advance of the event Minister Deenihan said "This exhibition comes about as a result of the Pilot Philanthropy Scheme – an initiative of my Department – and the generosity of a number of donors. Staff of the NIVAL undertook a comprehensive survey of Dorothy Walker's material. Additionally, there is now an online catalogue attached to the Archive, providing to the public for the first time a sense of the scope and extent of the collection and the far-reaching impact of Dorothy Walker’s legacy.

Dorothy Walker played a central role in many of the most significant events in Irish visual art in the second half of the 20th century, including the foundation of the Rosc exhibitions, the Guinness–Peat Aviation Awards and the establishment of the Irish Museum of Modern Art.

The Archive was bequeathed to NIVAL and presented to the library by the Walker family in 2004