Tipperary artist remembered in exhibition taking place in Waterford

The Waterford Gallery of Art is currently hosting the exhibition Muscles & Mind: Irish Art Olympians, which continues until November 26.

The exhibition launch at the end of July coincided with the official opening of the Paris Olympic Games and it was launched by Olympic silver medal winner, marathon runner John Treacy.

The exhibition is taking place with support from the Waterford Arts Office, Creative Ireland and the Olympic Federation of Ireland.

One of the main focuses of the exhibition is to highlight how integral art was to the early Olympics.

The exhibition features ‘Human Frieze with Lilies’ by the Tipperary-born artist, the late John Keating.

Mr Keating, who lived in Dalkey, Co Dublin and was originally from Clonmel, passed away in August of last year.

Born in Tipperary Town and raised in Upper Gladstone Street in Clonmel, he was the son of the late Pierce and Nora Keating. John Keating studied at Crawford College of Art, Cork; Trinity College, Dublin and Loughborough University in Leicestershire.
He attended the Arts Students League of New York as a Fulbright scholar and his work received international acclaim.

He received many prestigious international awards from Ireland, Italy, the UK, China, Monaco and the United States. These included a Gold Medal of Honour at the Olympic Fine Art London in 2012.

He had a particular affinity with Italy and participated in the 2020 First Premio Nazionale per Le Arti Visive (first edition) in Bologna, Italy, where he was awarded first prize in painting.

His work was also presented in an exhibition in the House Museum of Dante in Florence in March 2022.

He exhibited with world-renowned artists including Lucien Freud, Giacomo Manzu, Rainer Fetting, Enzo Cucchi, KK Hodicke, Arnulf Rainer and Hermann Albert.

Although based in Dublin since the late 1970s, he was very proud of his Tipperary roots and had the distinction of being a member of the first committee of the South Tipperary Art Group (STAG), which was founded in Clonmel more than 50 years ago.

The International Olympic Committee agreed to be the patron of an exhibition at the Barbican in London, to coincide with the 2012 Olympic Games in the city.

Under the title the Olympic Fine Arts 2012, the London Organising Committee of the Games and the Chinese Olympic Committee invited 500 artists from around the world to exhibit works.

John Keating’s entry, ‘Oriental Lilies, Oil On Canvas’, was awarded the gold medal for painting.

‘Oriental Lilies’ is now in a private collection but ‘Human Frieze with Lilies’ was painted during the same period.

The exhibition in Waterford also features works by Jack B Yeats, Letitia Hamilton, Seán Keating, Mainie Jellett, Fr Jack P Hanlon, Desmond Broe, Flora Vere O’Brien, Ina Boyle, Stella Steyn, Hilda Roberts, Sir John Lavery, Sir William Orpen and more.

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