Gardiner Street Lower

Lars Nyberg , Swedish, b.1956

Title

Date1993

MediumDrypoint on paper

Dimensions

Plate: 15.8 × 13.7 cm

Sheet: 37.7 × 28.5 cm

Credit LinePresented, 2023

Object numberNGI.2023.52

DescriptionThis is one of 27 drypoints gifted to the collection by Swedish printmaker Lars Nyberg. The prints depict a variety of subjects: street scenes, winter trees and abstract architectural features. Each image is infused with silence, emptiness and a sense of calm. The Dublin prints were begun while Nyberg was working at Graphic Studio Dublin’s premises at Green Street East in the 1990s. They depict the Dublin docklands (mainly Grand Canal and Spencer Dock) before its redevelopment. Eleven record parts of inner city Dublin including buildings in Parnell Street, Gardiner Street and Mountjoy Square. Five of the prints depict wintry trees and paths in rural Mayo and were inspired by his residency at the Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Ballycastle in 2000.
The date noted is the year the plate was finished, but often he began work on a plate many years earlier. He explained his method of working: ‘I made a lot of sketches and took a lot of photos so I could remember details. I never draw or scratch after photos, the idea, the ‘feeling’, will die in a way then. For me, making art involves waiting, I look upon a proof or a drawing, thinking and waiting for the idea, the feeling, to ‘develop’. Taking time for an idea to mature. I always print my copperplates myself and I use a simple steel needle for the drypoint works.’ The story behind the print, in the artist’s own words, was written in February 2024.

The first building in Dublin that I sketched. On a late November afternoon, a barman gently lifted a drunk man out onto the sidewalk. The man lifted his fist and cursed life. I liked that square building, the old bar, with empty rooms upstairs filled with memories. When looking at the same building from Parnell Street I could see a big black window.

Inscriptioncentre left: HC
centre right: Lars Nyberg
lower right: Lower Gardiner street/ A bar same building on Parnell street