Paula Murphy, School of Art History and Cultural Policy, University College Dublin.

Our Great National Temple of Art and Industry

Abstract: Sculpture was a feature of the Dublin Exhibition of 1853. Included in the Fine Art Court along with painting, it was also distributed throughout the exhibition building, where the whiteness of the marble or plaster made the sculptures especially visible. A contemporary art journal noted that, while work by the most renowned artists in Europe was included in the exhibition, ‘the leading and most meritorious of the sculptors are Irishmen’. As might be expected, an essay on Sculpture in the Exhibition catalogue came to the same conclusion. Highlighting Belfast sculptor Patrick MacDowell’s ‘Eve’, which had a place of honour in the Exhibition Hall, and contrasting it with the more widely famous ‘Greek Slave’ by American sculptor Hiram Powers (shown in copy at the exhibition), the essay gave lengthy consideration to questioning the propriety of the nude figure in modern art. This paper will explore the range of sculpture at the exhibition and what, if any, was its impact.

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