Title: Miss O'Murphy: Variation d'apres Boucher. Second Real Irish Political Picture
Date: 1976
Medium: Mixed media on paper
Signed: lower right: Michael Farrell 12-14/7/76
Credit Line: Purchased, 2015
Object Number: NGI.2015.15
DescriptionThis mixed media work forms part of Michael Farrell's acerbic commentary on the political situation in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. In 1969, while making his acceptance speech for the main award at the Irish Exhibition of Living Art at the Crawford Art Gallery, Farrell condemned the situation in Derry and in particular British policy in Northern Ireland. Throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s Farrell's work in all media addressed the bloody, intractable nature of contemporary Ireland. His Madonna Irlanda series (of which this is a part) drew attention to, and condemned, what he saw as the complacency of the Irish political establishment. He intended these works to be controversial and mildly blasphemous.
ProvenancePurchased, Taylor Galleries, Dublin, 2015
Exhibition HistorySolstice Arts Centre, Navan, Co. Meath, 22 August - 19 October 2013
Crawford Gallery, Cork, 7 November 2013 - 4 January 2014
RHA, Dublin, 16 January - 23 February 2014
Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris, 13 March - 27 April 2014
Inscriptionlower right: 12-14/7/76
Study "Villa Romana" Firenze [sic]