User talk:HannahHarty

History of the gallery
Limerick City Galley of Art occupies the historic Neo-Hiberno-Romanesque Carnegie Building, 1906, adjacent to the People's Park and on the 19th century, Georgian styled, Pery Square in Limerick City. The building was funded by Andrew Carnegie (1835 – 1919) as Carnegie Free Library and Museum. In 1936 a group of prominent Limerick politicians, artists and patrons established the first Limerick City Collection of Art from various donations and bequests. In 1948 an extension to the rear of Limerick Free Library and Museum became the home to the City Collection as the Limerick Free Art Gallery. In 1985 the Library and Museum were transferred to larger buildings. LCGA has since occupied the entire Carnegie Building, undergoing a major renovation and expansion in 1999. In 2008 LCGA celebrated its sixtieth birthday and in 2009 work commenced on the largest addition to the Carnegie Building since its opening a century before. Limerick’s municipal art collection is one of the finest in the country outside Dublin. Fittingly, the seventy-fifth anniversary of its foundation has been marked by the official opening of the newly extended LCGA on 16th January 2012 by Jimmy Deenihan TD, Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. In 2012, the Carnegie Building (a protected structure) was extended on three sides into the People’s Park to house a new storage space for the permanent collection, a café social space, a workshop area and additional public facilities. The extension was designed by Hugh Murray of Limerick (Project Architect) and John A. O’Reilly of County Clare (Design Architect) and funded by the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht through the Access II scheme (designed to assist the provision of high standard arts and culture infrastructure) which provided 70 per cent of the cost and Limerick City Council, which provided the other 30 per cent. The scale of the redevelopment necessitated the closure of LCGA for a over a year, during which parts of the collection were exhibited in Istabraq Hall, Limerick City Hall and the Hunt Museum.

The Collection
The collection began in 1936 when a committee was set up to collect pieces for the gallery. In 1948, gallery was built to house the collection. This was an extension to an existing Carnegie Free Library and Museum which is located in the grounds of People’s Park, Pery Square. LCGA’s collection policy is based on that established by the committee in 1936. Which desired that a section of the gallery should be reserved for people of Limerick which have contributed to the history, literature or arts. Another section should then be served for those who contributed with paintings, drawings or collages etc. The permanent collection grew organically and was initially driven and directed by combination of artists, politicians and business people. The gallery now holds a collection of over 831 historic and contemporary works from 456 artists. It reflects the development of modern Irish art in painting, sculpture, drawing, photography and new media. The initial idea of developing the permanent collection was to collect all the works from all well-known Irish artists or those who have worked in Ireland-this idea is still in use today. Lately, the way in which the works are gained to the permanent collection is very much in tandem with the gallery’s contemporary exhibition policy. The national collection was also started by a group of local artists and business man who donated their contemporary drawings to the gallery with the promise that the collection will be named National Collection of Contemporary Drawings. The gallery since then expanded the collection so it will be worth of its name. Currently there is over 200 pieces and has attracted exhibitions which are specially dedicated to contemporary drawings in Ireland and abroad. Michael O’Connor Poster Collection is an electronic collection of posters of historical and cultural significance. It consists of over 2,800 posters and it was donated by collector Michael O’Connor.