To set the stage for the Snite Museum’s exhibition Who Do We Say We Are? Irish Art 1922 | 2022 scheduled for spring 2022, visiting scholar Dr. William Shortall will offer his insights into its impetus, the World Congress of the Irish Race, held in Paris in January 1922, and the Exposition d’Art Irlandais that accompanied it.
Organized at the Galerie Barbazanges, the exhibition in 1922 was a bold statement in the art capital of the world by a new state. With 300 works, it presented a public display of artistic independence to support the nascent Irish Free State’s claims of political independence.
Shortall is the lead researcher on the Irish government’s “Decade of Centenaries” project to virtually recreate the 1922 Paris exhibition and other events associated with the Paris Congress. He is visiting the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies this fall to complete research on the project and to assist with the Snite Museum’s upcoming exhibition.
In this presentation, Shortall will examine the new Irish state’s 1922 World Congress, show and discuss works included in the Exposition d’Art Irlandais, and comment on the success of the Irish Free State’s deployment of cultural diplomacy.
Co-sponsor: Snite Museum of Art