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Louis le Brocquy tapestry set for Irish Museum of Modern Art
Twenty Aubusson Táin tapestries donated to IMMA.
The Irish Museum of Modern Art celebrates the recent acquisition of a complete set of Louis le Brocquy's 'Táin' tapestries by exhibiting all 20 tapestries until January 2003. The tapestries grew from le Brocquy's remarkable set of illustrations for Thomas Kinsella's renowned translation of the Táin , held to be the great Irish Livre d'Artiste of the twentieth century.
Businessman Brian Timmons has donated a complete set of Louis le Brocquy's TainTapestries to the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA). The works were completed as an exhibition of two colour tapestries in 2000. According to the IMMA, the exhibition "must rank among the best-known art works ever created in this country." Mr Timmons made the donation under the Heritage Donations Act.
The Tain, twenty Aubusson tapestries, all measure 184 X 129 cm (Vertically or horizontally). THE MASSING OF THE ARRMIES: 184 X 280 cm
See complete setTHE TAIN SERIES, TWENTY DESIGNS FROM TAIN BO CUAILNGE
Woven in Aubusson France, by the expert Lissiers of the Atelier René Duché, Meilleur ouvrier de France.
Commissioned in limited editions of nine, with one added artist's proof & one editionhors commerce.These tapestries are directly inspired by the artist's original lithographic brush drawings which were made in 1968-69 by Louis le Brocquy to illustrate Thomas Kinsella's inspired translation of the Tain Bo Cuailnge, the dramatic record of Ireland's proto-historic past and the centre-piece of the eighth century Ulster cycle of heroic tales.
In these the artist hopes that the images selected from Tain Bo Cuailnge, transmuted into the woven forms of tapestry, may be seen as a tribute to the poet Thomas Kinsella who inspired them and to the devoted publisher and designer Liam Miller who gave them their original coherence.
