antiquesandartireland.com

The Cork artist Daniel MacDonald is the focus of an exhibition at Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum at Quinnipiac University, Connecticut from January 20 to April 17.   “Into the Lion’s Den: Daniel MacDonald, Ireland and Empire” is  a landmark in Irish and Irish-American cultural and social history.

Daniel MacDonald exhibited a number of pictures at the RHA from 1842-44 and painted a portrait of Fr. Matthew. He moved to London in the mid-1840’s and exhibited at the British Institution in 1847 and again from 1849-51. In a catalogue note the museum point out that MacDonald was the only Irish artist audacious enough to paint the famine while it was happening.  His painting, An Irish Peasant Family Discovering the Blight of their Store, was displayed in London in 1847. His work is in the Crawford Gallery in Cork, the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin and the British Museum.  He died in 1853 aged just 32. The exhibition is curated by Professor Niamh O’Sullivan.

Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum is home to the world’s largest collection of art related to the Great Hunger. There is work by contemporary artists and a collection of 19th century paintings by some of the most important artists of the period.