Leo Whelan RHA (10 January 1892 – 6 November 1956) was an Irish

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

. His work was part of the painting event in the art competition at the

1932 Summer Olympics The 1932 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the X Olympiad and also known as Los Angeles 1932) were an international multi-sport event held from July 30 to August 14, 1932, in Los Angeles, California, United States. The Games were held du ...

. 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 ...

and educated at

Belvedere College Belvedere College Society of Jesus, S.J. (sometimes St Francis Xavier's College) is a fee-paying voluntary secondary school for boys in Dublin, Ireland. Formally established in 1832 at Hardwicke Street in north inner city Dublin, the school was ...

and the Metropolitan School of Art, Whelan was a student of

William Orpen Major (United Kingdom), Major Sir William Newenham Montague Orpen, (27 November 1878 – 29 September 1931) was an Irish artist who mainly worked in London. Orpen was a fine draughtsman and a popular, commercially successful painter of portrai ...

. He first exhibited at the

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 ...

in 1911, and was awarded the Taylor Art Scholarship five years later in 1916. He exhibited nearly 250 works at the RHA from 1911 until 1956. He painted many portraits of

Irish Republican Army The Irish Republican Army (IRA) is a name used by various Resistance movement, resistance organisations in Ireland throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Organisations by this name have been dominantly Catholic and dedicated to anti-imperiali ...

volunteers, including General

Richard Mulcahy Richard James Mulcahy (10 May 1886 – 16 December 1971) was an Irish Fine Gael politician and army general who served as Minister for Education from 1948 to 1951 and 1954 to 1957, Minister for the Gaeltacht from June 1956 to October 1956, L ...

and

Michael Collins Michael Collins or Mike Collins most commonly refers to: * Michael Collins (Irish leader) (1890–1922), Irish revolutionary leader, soldier, and politician * Michael Collins (astronaut) (1930–2021), American astronaut, member of Apollo 11 and Ge ...

. He was the designer of the first Free State commemorative stamp, issued in 1929 for the Centenary of Catholic Emancipation, a portrait of

Daniel O'Connell Daniel(I) O’Connell (; 6 August 1775 – 15 May 1847), hailed in his time as The Liberator, was the acknowledged political leader of Ireland's Roman Catholic majority in the first half of the 19th century. His mobilisation of Catholic Irelan ...

. One of his closest friends was tenor John McCormack, who unsuccessfully tried to persuade Whelan to move to the United States. Leo Whelan at the Crawford Art Gallery. Retrieved Mar. 11, 2008.

References

External links

Whelan at Irish Graves
* 1892 births 1956 deaths 20th-century Irish painters Irish male painters Painters from Dublin (city) People educated at Belvedere College Members of the Royal Hibernian Academy Art competitors at the 1932 Summer Olympics Members of the Royal Ulster Academy 20th-century Irish male artists {{Ireland-painter-stub