ODYSSEYS marks the centenary of James Joyce’s modernist masterpiece Ulysses, which was published in Paris on 2 February 1922. The exhibition offers an exploration of journeys through art, from Ancient Greece to 1920s Samoa, with a special focus on Joyce’s own often overlooked relationship with Cork.

Connecting with Joyce’s earlier novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), the exhibition follows Stephen Dedalus’ journey to Cork and his semi-autobiographical experiences there. In addition to references to Dublin and Paris, a chapter from the new documentary, James Joyce: Framed in Cork, will accompany works from the collection by artists Louis le Brocquy, Mahrea Cramer Lehman, Harry Aaron Kernoff, Norah McGuinness, among others.

From its particular focus on James Joyce, ODYSSEYS will also embrace the wider sense of journeys in art, from the mythic to the everyday. Portraits of Burke and Barry in the characters of Ulysses and a companion fleeing from the cave of Polyphemus (c.1776) by James Barry will form the centrepiece of this expanded field, which will also include journeying artists Beatrice Gubbins, Mary Swanzy, and Roderic O’Connor, in addition to works by Rita Duffy, Derek Hill, Seán Keating, and Daniel Maclise.

Curated by Flicka Small and Michael Waldron