Curated by Dr Margarita Cappock, Head of Collections

This exhibition draws on portraits of notable women found in the collection of Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane and will feature a selection of works by artists such as Philip de László, John Singer Sargent, Giovanni Boldini, William Orpen, Antonio Mancini, James McNeill Whistler, Sarah Purser, Augustus John, Jacob Epstein, John Lavery and Maurice de Vlaminck. The sitters include numerous individuals connected with the arts, politics, industry, sports and fashionable society, with striking images of, amongst others, Lady Gregory, Maud Gonne, Hazel Lavery, Iris Tree and Clementina Anstruther Thomson. The links between many of the artists and sitters are explored, and the works, spanning some 80 years, showcase the broad variety of art created during this time. Women of Substance celebrates the parts these women played in society, and challenges preconceptions of the role of women at a time of great social change when new possibilities for women became available.