Artwork of the month
Earlier this year I became a volunteer at the gorgeous National Gallery of Ireland, housing the national collection of Irish and European art. As well as directing people to the café, the cloakroom, the Caravaggio and my favourite room (Room 20, the stained glass room of course), I love discovering more about the collection and sharing that knowledge with visitors. Volunteers can write about a favourite artwork each month, and the Gallery chooses one piece at random to feature on its social media pages. Below is the piece I submitted for September. I plan to write more and will publish them here.
Girl Going By Trinity In The Rain, by Una Watters
During my interview to become a Gallery volunteer, I was stumped by a straightforward question — what’s your favourite piece in the collection?
Seconds, possibly even minutes, passed in agonising silence as I grappled for an answer. The interviewers gazed across the boardroom table, eyebrows raised. My only panicked thought was, “Don’t say a Harry Clarke”. I’d already told them I love him, described my novel about him and mentioned meeting his granddaughter at a Friends’ screening of a documentary about his Geneva Window. Another mention of Harry would surely be overkill. I finally stuttered something about Caravaggio and mercifully the interview ended shortly afterwards.
Inevitably, I remembered a favourite non-Harry Clarke artwork straight after the interview. It’s ‘Girl Going by Trinity in the Rain’ by Una Watters, an arresting painting acquired in 2023. I first saw it on a website about Una’s life and work by writer Mary Morrissy, who was lucky enough to have this wonderful picture in her home for many years.
The background to this acquisition is poignant. In 1965 Una Watters died suddenly at the height of her career, aged just 47. Her paintings, made in the kitchen of her cottage in Finglas, had been exhibited alongside work by the likes of Mary Swanzy, Jack B. Yeats, Grace Henry and Louis le Brocquy. Following her death, her husband Eugene organised a retrospective, and afterwards gave the paintings away to friends and relatives. Maybe he felt too sad to keep them, but this had unfortunate repercussions. Because they went into private hands and no records were kept, Una’s pictures disappeared from view and she was largely forgotten.
The recipient of ‘Girl Going by Trinity in the Rain’ was Colbert Kearney, who later became Mary Morrissy’s partner. Mary, along with Una’s niece Sheila Smith, spent years tracking down Una’s paintings. In 2022 they mounted an exhibition, Into The Light, bringing her beautiful work back into public consciousness. Fortunately for Irish art lovers, Colbert then kindly donated his painting to our national collection.
I love this modernist picture with its cubist influences, a stylish and evocative image of a familiar location. Every Dubliner, and most visitors, will have walked past Trinity’s front railings. In striking contrast to the dull, wet day and the building’s stone facade, the girl in the picture wears a vibrant ruby-red coat and carries an orange umbrella, gripped determinedly in both hands. She’s hunched against the weather but looks ahead, thinking of her destination perhaps. The rain slants down in parallel rods, distorting her outfit’s chic lines, the patterns of the paving and building stones, and the upright railings. I’m in awe of the picture’s technical skill. The vivid green of Trinity’s front lawn seems to bounce up, reflected in the sheeting raindrops.
Researching this piece, I discovered Una Watters went to the same school as I did, the Holy Faith in Glasnevin. I like to think she was a proud northsider like me. And Harry Clarke.
Mary Morrissy’s website: https://unawattersartist.com/author/marymorrissy/
Catherine Crichton Writer 