Paul Rouse: What does it mean to compete as an Olympic artist?
Drumm Portrait Sammy Treacy Of New Artist Dgm And John With (olympic John Federation Of Treacy) Liz Of Art And Olympic Patricia (sisters Gallery At Artist: Georgina Kane Picture: Of Of Waterford Ireland), Photographic Unveiling
Waterford city is thriving now with its Christmas markets, ice skating, Big Top music and fairground attractions. “Winterval” is in its 12th year and is billed as the largest Christmas festival in the country.
Right in the middle of the markets, on O’Connell Street, an exceptional art exhibition centred on the largest sporting event in the world is in its last days. It is a brilliant exposition of the sheer diversity of lived sporting experience and is a window into what is for many people an unknown or forgotten story.
The exhibition is entitled “Muscles and Minds” and it features the work of artists who are part of the Waterford Art Collection who competed for Ireland in the Olympic Games between 1924 and 1948.
These artists include not just Yeats and Keating, but also Letitia Hamilton, Mainie Jellett, John Lavery and many others.
The exhibition is being staged in the Waterford Gallery of Art, originally founded in 1939 and long established as one of Ireland’s very best civic collections of art. There are paintings by Jack B. Yeats and Sarah Purser, Evie Hone and Seán Keating.
Sport was not a central part of the collection here for many years; indeed, it might be considered at best to have held a very marginal presence. The current exhibition entirely redresses that position.
The exhibition is an extraordinary work of recovery. It has identified art and artists whose stories sat previously untold.
It also asks some interesting questions about the very idea of tying artistic competitions to sporting ones and awarding medals to the winners: “What does it mean to compete as an artist? What does it mean to represent your nation alongside, and against others? Who decides the difference between gold, silver and bronze levels of creativity – and does it matter?”
From the Paris Olympics in 1924 to the London Olympics in 1948, Irish writers and artists entered competitions in painting, drawing and watercolours, literature, sculpture, architecture and music.
Yeats won a silver for his painting “The Liffey Swim” in 1924 and in that same year Oliver St. John Gogarty won a bronze for his poem “Ode to the Tailteann Games”.
The other medal won across these artistic categories of the Games came in 1948 when Letitia Hamilton won a bronze medal for her painting, “Meath Hunt Point-to-Point Races”.
It is striking that, like many of the paintings entered in the Olympic Games competitions, the whereabouts of this work is unknown. There is something more than a little sad about that.
Other works that were unsuccessful were produced in relation to sports such as boxing and rowing, sailing and athletics, hurling and tug-o’-war, swimming and hunting.
One of the most interesting entrants was Fr Jack P. Hanlon, who was ordained as a priest in Maynooth. During the 1930s, Fr Hanlon used to go to France on painting holidays.
He later served as curate in various Dublin parishes, lastly at Churchtown where he was based for a decade before his death in 1968.
At the exhibition, it is noted that Fr. Hanlon was “inspired by cubism” and “favoured watercolours and a colour palette of either soft pastel or vibrant, joyous tones”.
Fr. Hanlon’s paintings in 1948 were entitled “Preparing for a Day’s Sailing” and “The Jockeys”. Neither was successful, although he also exhibited a painting at the Helsinki Olympics entitled “Rugby Match”.
A brilliant sidebar to the exhibition charts the musical entries. These include the work of Gerard Victory, one-time musical director of the Abbey Theatre and later head of the musical department of RTÉ Radio until 1982. He composed operas and symphonies, chamber music and movie soundtracks.
His song for the 1948 London Games was entitled “True Greatness”, although it was ultimately not a medal winner.
A further brilliant aspect of the exhibition sees modern artists respond to ideas around sport, national representation and the idea of competing as artists. There is a fantastic portrait by Sammy Kane of John Treacy, the Waterford men who won silver at the Los Angelos Olympics of 1984.
Another painting of Treacy by Noel O’Donoghue is even more revealing. It captures Treacy as he sought to retain his World Cross Country championship in Limerick in 1979.
O’Donoghue explained: “The place I painted was of John turning the last corner before the home straight in Limerick with determination etched on his face. I hope I captured the overcast, mucky day that was brightened by his incredible achievement.
“I remember going to school in Cappoquin with John. He was several classes ahead of me, but I remember that he would send his schoolbag home on the school bus, run to the Cappoquin sports field, do 10-15 laps of the field and then run home to Villerstown.”
This painting is a local Irish version of sports representation that adds to a tradition that is thousands of years in the making.
The Greek and Roman eras saw the depiction of all manner of athletic activity, including sculptures (like a fifth-century BC sculpture called “The Discus Thrower”) and representations on vases of various athletic feats.
There is poetry, too, from for example China around 100Ad where a poet called Li Yu wrote of a football game:
In the medieval world, there are paintings in what is modern day Iran, Turkey and India which depict polo playing.
Crucially, art and poetry are not just a way of representing what is happening, it is also about making visible and revealing a deeper meaning.
In this respect, that John Treacy can be painted by a friend brings a new perspective to a familiar scene. The painting hangs for another week at the Waterford Art Gallery on O’Connell Street.
You don’t need very long – and the exhibition is free – but every minute spent in the gallery is an education on the place of sport in modern life.