FRANCIS DANBY Lecture

This lecture will celebrate the plein-air aspects of Wexford born artist Francis Danby's work. The timing of the presentation is linked with the upcoming 200th anniversary of that fateful London trip made by Danby and his fellow artists James Arthur O’Connor (1792-1841) and George Petrie (1790-1866) and is marked in Wexford by the launching of an Award at the 5th Art in the Open Festival to honour Danby and to encourage Irish Landscape painting.

The presentation will last approx. 45min, beginning with an outline of the development of plein-air painting and then focusing on a closer study of Francis Danby's outdoor sketches his watercolours and finally his oil paintings with emphasis on figure studies in his landscapes. The general aim of the lecture will be to enhance a greater appreciation of some of the smaller Danby canvases and of his gentler plein-air paintings in comparison to his more familiar dramatic and theatrical larger works.