J.P Donleavy

Title

J.P Donleavy

Date2015

MediumArchive C print

Credit LinePurchased, 2019

Object numberNGI.2019.231

DescriptionKim Haughton is an Irish photographer and photojournalist based between Dublin and New York, where she works on many assignments for the United Nations. She spent the early part of her career covering post-conflict humanitarian issues around the globe for NGO and Government agencies. In 2015, she was named Irish photographer to Watch by TIME magazine who described her work as "at once sparse and textured".

She submitted this photograph to the 2018 Zurich Portrait Prize and was one of 26 artists shortlisted and displayed in the portrait gallery at NGI. Describing this work Haughton writes, "It was a warm morning in late June when J.P. Donleavy sat by the piano in the green room of his ramshackle mansion at Levington Hall. Although it was mid-summer, he was dressed for a colder air. His fingers lightly tickled the keys. We spoke for a while. And then, he sat in reflection. We didn’t know it then but it would be the last portrait of him. ‘Mike’, to his friends, died in September 2017."

This portrait is part of the series 'Portrait of a Century', a visual time capsule of the Irish nation at a significant time in history. Created over two years from 2015-2017, the work consists of one hundred portraits, each one representing the birth year of the person in it.

Exhibition HistoryZurich Portrait Prize 2018, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 6 October 2018 - 13 January 2019