‘For close on three miles above Cork the river runs slow and smooth as if reluctant to meet the sea. Pleasant meadows border the stream, meadows in a wide valley, the gateway to the west.’
– Robert Gibbings, Lovely is the Lee (1945)

This exhibition follows the course of the River Lee from its origins in the Shehy Mountains and Gougane Barra in the west to its meeting with the Celtic Sea at the mouth of Cork Harbour.

Artworks from the 1750s through to the present are featured in the exhibition, as it traces perspectives of the river and the stories it has carried and collected.

Much loved paintings, ranging from John Butts’ View of Cork from Audley Place (c.1750) and George Mounsey Wheatley Atkinson’s Paddle Steamer Entering the Port of Cork (1842), are joined by the work of artists Sarah Grace Carr, Kate Dobbin, John Fitzgerald, Robert Gibbings, Nathaniel Grogan, Patrick Hennessy, Samuel McDonnell, and George Petrie. Recent acquisitions by Ita Freeney, Bernadette Kiely, and Donald Teskey offer new contexts, while portraits by Richard Barter, Séamus Murphy, and Nano Reid recall rich tales from the Lee Valley by ‘Father Prout’ and The Tailor and Ansty.

Spanning historic and contemporary artworks from the Collection, FROM SOURCE TO SEA celebrates the culture of the River Lee and its tributaries.

Curated by Michael Waldron.