Homan Potterton

Life
1946- ; b. in a Co. Meath Protestant family ten generations in Ireland, and raised on a farm; ed. Trim National School; Preston School, Navan; and Kilkenny College; TCD, grad. 1968 (English & Art History); post-grad. in Art History at University of Edinburgh (1971); Cataloguer at the National Gallery of Ireland, 1971- 73; Curator of 17th & 18th Century Italian Paintings at the National Gallery, London, 1974-80; Director of the National Gallery of Ireland, 1980-88; moved to New York, 1988-96; contrib. on art to Financial Times; settled in France, 1997; ed. Irish Arts Review, 1993-02 and publisher of same from 1999; num. lectures and contrib. to Burlington Magazine, Apollo, Connoisseur, Country Life, The Irish Times, and Daily Telegraph; issued Rathcormack: A Childhood Recalled (2004), and Potterton People and Places (2007), a family history.

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Works
Autobiography, Rathcormick: A Childhood Recalled (Dublin: New Island 2004) [also Vintage pb. edn.]; Potterton People and Places (2007), 189pp., ill [geneal. charts].

Catalogues & studies, Andrew O’Connor, Sculptor: catalogue of an exhibition at Trinity College Dublin (1974); Irish Church Monuments, 1570-1880 (Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1975); A Guide to the National Gallery (National Gallery London Publications, 1976); Reynolds and Gainsborough: Themes and Painters in the National Gallery (National Gallery London Publications, 1976); The National Gallery, London (Thames & Hudson, 1977); Pageant and Panorama: The Elegant World of Canaletto (Phaidon Press, 1978); Irish Arts and Architecture: From Prehistory to the Present Day — conjoint author (Thames & Hudson, 1978); Grandes Museos del Mundo: National Gallery Londres (Ediciones Danae, Barcelona, 1979); Venetian Seventeenth Century Painting — catalogue of a loan exhibition at the National Gallery, London, 1979); National Gallery of Ireland: 50 Pictures — conjoint author (National Gallery of Ireland Publications, 1981); National Gallery of Ireland, Illustrated Summary Catalogue of Paintings — edited with an introduction (National Gallery of Ireland Publications, 1981); National Gallery of Ireland, Illustrated Summary Catalogue of Drawings, Watercolours and Miniatures — edited with an introduction (National Gallery of Ireland Publications, 1983); Dutch Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Paintings in the National Gallery of Ireland: A Complete Catalogue (National Gallery of Ireland Publications, 1986).

Lectures at the National Gallery, London; the National Gallery, Washington; the Metropolitan Museum, New York; the Getty Museum, Malibu; the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Philadelphia Museum; and in many other American art museums.

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Notes
Princess Grace Irish Library: Potterton was a guest speaker at the Princess Grace Irish Library in Feb. 2005.

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