A proud moment

After four years of campaigning to re-establish the reputation of Una Watters, we had a proud moment today when we went to view her work in its new (and rightful) home – the National Gallery of Ireland.

Girl Going by Trinity in the Rain now hangs in Room 15, alongside many of Una’s contemporaries – Louis le Brocquy, Mary Swanzy and Mainie Jellet – artists with whom she would have exhibited in the 1950s and 60s. Furthermore, it places her at the centre of the national visual stage and allows hundreds of new people to enjoy her work which has been hidden for so long.

The descriptive tag beside the painting notes its faceted surface which “demonstrates Watters’ awareness of Cubism and Futurism” as well as her depiction of the driving rain “as a novel means of distorting the picture plane”.

Marking the gallery’s acquisition of the work, Frank McNally writing in today’s Irish Times (8/06/23) under the heading “Watters Rising”, remarks that although it has taken Girl Going by Trinity in the Rain half a century to reach the NGI, the work has aged well. https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/an-irish-diary/2023/06/07/watters-rising-frank-mcnally-on-the-campaign-to-revive-the-memory-of-a-forgotten-artist/

We have to agree with him. Shown in the gallery’s Irish rooms, the painting sits between Tony O’Malley ‘s Self-portrait, winter, Heavy Snowfall at Trevalyor (1962/63)and Patrick Collins’ Liffey Quaysides (1957). Una’s striking work is already proving popular with visitors, according to Donal Maguire, director of the gallery’s ESB Centre for the Study of Irish Art.

The 1959 oil on canvas which was donated by Colbert Kearney to the gallery earlier this year, was gifted to him by Una’s husband, Eugene Watters, following Una’s death in 1965.

The lasting legacy of his donation is that Una’s work is now free to be seen by everyone who visits the gallery.

Photograph: Left to right, Colbert Kearney, the director of the NGI, Dr Caroline Campbell and Mary Morrissy.