Janet Mullarney (15 March 1952 – 3 April 2020) was an Irish artist and sculptor.

Life and education

Mullarney was born in

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

in 1952 and grew up in

Rathfarnham Rathfarnham () is a Southside (Dublin), southside suburb of Dublin, Republic of Ireland, Ireland in County Dublin. It is south of Terenure, east of Templeogue, and is in the postal districts of Dublin 14 and Dublin 16, 16. It is between the Lo ...

. She spent most of her life living in Ireland and Italy, where her final home was, back in Florence. She was one of eleven children. Her mother was

Máire Mullarney Máire Mullarney (1 September 1921 – 18 August 2008) was an Irish environmentalist, educationalist and Esperanto advocate. She was one of the founding members of the Irish Green Party in 1981 (then known as the Ecology Party of Ireland). She ...

, a founding member of the Green Party in Ireland. At first, she was educated at home, then at the Loreto Beaufort in Rathfarnham until she was expelled. Mullarney was then sent to prison. Initially, Mullarney began to study psychiatric nursing. She went on to study in

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

, Italy at the

Accademia di Belle Arti This is a list of the tertiary-level schools or academies of fine art in Italy that are recognised by the Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Università e della Ricerca, the Italian ministry of higher education. Accademie di Belle Arti The of ...

and the Scuola Professionale di Intaglio. She died on 3 April 2020 after a long illness.

Career and work

Irish Times ''The Irish Times'' is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper and online digital publication. It was launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Ruadhán Mac Cormaic. It is published every day except Sundays. ''The Irish Times'' is Ireland's leading n ...

art critic Aidan Dunne wrote:

"Enter Mullarney's world, and you fall through an imaginative trapdoor into another realm of fables and fairy tales, where animal characters stand in for humans and meaning is cut loose from the bounds of convention. Her acrobats and performers evoke the heady, heightened space of the circus ring."

Mullarney's work is in the collections of the

Arts Council of Ireland The Arts Council (sometimes called the Arts Council of Ireland; legally ) is the independent "Irish government agency for developing the arts". About It was established in 1951 by the government of Ireland, to encourage interest in Irish art ( ...

, the OPW,

IMMA ''Imma'' is a large genus of moths in the obtectomeran "micromoth" family Immidae. This is the type genus of its family. They are widespread in the tropics, with most species occurring between the Himalayas and the Oceanian region; the genus i ...

, and the

Hugh Lane Gallery The Hugh Lane Gallery, and originally the Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, is an art museum operated by Dublin City Council and its wholly-owned company, the Hugh Lane Gallery Trust. It is in Charlemont House (built 1763) on Parnell Square, Dub ...

. Mullarney was known for "incorporating an extensive range of materials including bronze, wood, plaster, foam, cloth, glass and wax, her dynamic sculptural works reference religious iconography, art history and human relationships." Mullarney was a member of

Aosdána Aosdána ( , ; from , 'people of the arts') is an Irish association or academy of artists, each of whom must have produced a distinguished body of work of genuine originality. It was created in 1981 by the country's Arts Council on the initiati ...

, elected in 1999. She is represented by

Taylor Galleries Taylor Galleries is a contemporary commercial art gallery in Dublin, Ireland. History Taylor Galleries opened in July 1978 ostensibly as a continuation of the Dawson Gallery – a gallery established by Leo Smith in 1944. John Taylor – wh ...

. She has work in the collection of Butler Gallery.

Solo exhibitions

Project Arts Centre Project Arts Centre is a multidisciplinary arts centre based in Temple Bar, Dublin, which hosts visual arts, theatre, dance, music, and performance. History Project Arts Centre was founded by Jim FitzGerald and Colm O'Briain in 1967 after a th ...

, Dublin, 1990 *Orchard Gallery, Derry, NI, (1992) *

Limerick City Gallery of Art Limerick City Gallery of Art (LCGA; ) is an art museum in the city of Limerick, Ireland. It is run by Limerick City Council and is located in Pery Square, in the Newtown Pery area of the city. The gallery is housed in a Romanesque Revival bui ...

, Limerick (1992, 1996, 1999) * ''Squilibri Contenuti'',

Model Arts and Niland Gallery The Model, home of the Niland Collection, formerly called Model Arts and Niland Gallery, is a contemporary arts centre and gallery space in Sligo, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The gallery houses several exhibition spaces focusing on contemporary ...

, Sligo, Ireland, 1996 * The Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery, Dublin, (1998) * Butler Gallery, Kilkenny (1999) *Fenton Gallery, Cork (2002) * Crawford Municipal Gallery, Cork, (1990, 2003) *

(2003) *''Things Made'',

Royal Hibernian Academy The Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts (RHA) is an artist-based and artist-oriented institution in Ireland, founded in Dublin in 1823. Like many other Irish institutions, such as the Royal Irish Academy, the academy retained the word "Royal" after mo ...

, Dublin, 2010 *''things done'',

, Dublin, 2010 *''MY MINDS i'', Butler Gallery, Kilkenny, 2015

Awards

* The Pollock Krasner Award, 1998 * Irish American Cultural Institute's O’Malley Award 2005 * Department of Foreign Affairs 2008 Awards * The RHA Sculpture Award 2008 *

Royal Ulster Academy The Royal Ulster Academy (RUA) has existed in one form or another since 1879. It started life then, as The Belfast Ramblers' Sketching Club drawn from the staff of Marcus Ward & Co who held their first show in Ward's Library on Botanic Avenue in 1 ...

Perpetual Silver Medal, Prize 2009

Bibliography

Mullarney, Janet. ''The perfect family: Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art''. Dublin: Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, 1998. Pierini, Marco. ''Il palazzo delle liberta''. Siena Prato: Palazzo delle Papesse, Centro arte contemporanea Gli ori, 2003. Sgaravatti, Mariella. ''Tuscany artists' gardens''. London: Thames & Hudson, 2004. Marshall, Catherine, and Mary Ryder. ''Janet Mullarney''. Co. Kildare, Ireland: Irish Academic Press, 2019.

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mullarney, Janet 1952 births 2020 deaths 20th-century Irish women artists Artists from Dublin (city) Irish sculptors Artists from Florence Irish contemporary artists