Art
Hunt Museum Summer Exhibition School Programme
To accompany the Hunt Museum’s prestigious summer exhibition entitled Jack B. Yeats and Paul Henry: Contrasting Visions of Ireland the Hunt Museum Summer Exhibition School Programme is being delivered by the museum’s Education Department which encourages pupils of all ages to explore and respond to the visually exciting artworks on display.
Throughout the month of June pupils of all ages from ten local schools will be participating in the Hunt Museum Summer Exhibition School Programme. Already Presentation Primary (Sexton Street), School Mhuire (Meelick), Thomond Primary School and Our Lady Queen of Peace have participated and other primary schools, including those operating in Rathkeale and Newcastle West, will also be coming along before they break up for the summer holidays.
Maria Cagney, Curator of Education at The Hunt Museum said “this exhibition is a dream in regard to engaging children with Irish art. While the exhibition documents an Ireland that was becoming increasingly modern after the formation of the Free State, it also gives wonderful insight into ways of life and traditions in the West of Ireland and how it remained virtually untouched by modernity. The expressionist style of Yeats fires the imagination and encourages active interpretation while Henry’s realist artworks encourage the pupils to understand key concepts relating to reading and understanding art such as the role of composition, light and colour. The pupils then get the opportunity to re-create and even re-invent the artworks they have experienced. We are taking every opportunity we can to expose children to this art and local schools have responded to our invitation in great numbers. ”
In September, Post Primary schools will be encouraged to sign up to a schools programme catering for their curricular needs. In recent years learning visits by Leaving Certificate Art students have become particularly popular because the programmes offered by the museum enable them to confidently tackle several exam questions in the Art History and Appreciation paper. The display of Yeats and Henry artworks in the museum’s summer exhibition offers them yet more opportunities for curricular learning and the study of 20th century Irish Art.
To find out more about the Hunt Museum Summer Exhibition School Programme, please click here.
To read more stories about the Hunt Museum, please click here.