Remarks by President Mary McAleese at the official opening of the Pauline Bewick Exhibition, 'The Seven Ages'

Waterford Institute of Technology, Tuesday 14th November 2006

Is mór an pléisiúir dom bheith anseo libh inniu agus ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a chur in iúl díbh as an chaoin-chuireadh agus as fáilte fíorchaoin.

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to be with you today to mark the opening of the 'The Seven Ages' art exhibition and I am grateful to the director of the Waterford Institute of Technology, Professor Kieran Byrne, for the kind invitation to join you all.

When the 19th century art critic Ruskin said that he knew 'no drawing so subtle as Bewick's since the fifteenth century' and when the young Jane Eyre described her response to Bewick, 'Each picture told a story; mysterious often to my undeveloped understanding and imperfect feelings, yet ever profoundly interesting.'

We can believe they must have been referring, not to then contemporary artist Thomas Bewick, but to his descendent, Pauline, who is here with us today. If ever proof was needed that the thread of genius runs in families, it is here. From childhood he, too, had a delight in drawing and an intimate feeling for nature. His wonderful pictures of wildlife, also, are a marriage of technique and artistic form that produces images of great evocative power.

But it is not Pauline's artistic roots which we celebrate today but the growth and blossoming of her unique visual poetry with its sophistication and subtlety, its hovering impressions, its so-confident drama. We know, of course, that Pauline Bewick is one of Ireland's leading artists and sometimes the simple rehearsal of that well-worn phrase can blind us to the hard road travelled to that status, the process by which such a status and statement are earned. And it has been a testing process with more than its share of controversy at times. Yet the integrity of the work and of the artist triumphed and it was the quality of communication in her uniquely lyrical graphic style that brought record-breaking crowds to her exhibitions and led to the universal acclaim which we celebrate today. All around the world you will find Pauline's work in the finest of galleries and collections, and appreciated by the widest, the most democratic and egalitarian of audiences. Today her work continues to delight and amaze. Ever innovative and inventive and, as this institution has good cause to know, ever generous. There is something of a role reversal here for we expect our educational institutions to be patrons of the arts. Yet it is Pauline, the artist, who is both patron of education and of the Irish nation giving over 600 works.

Pauline has decided that one-third of the paintings should remain in Kerry where she has made her home, a further third will form a travelling exhibition that will be viewed not only across Ireland but also will travel abroad and the final third have been donated to the historic city of Waterford where they will now find their permanent home in this magnificent exhibition on the three floors of this splendid building. How else could you describe the wealth of tapestries, wall hangings, watercolours and sketches and the sheer variety of media and subjects which take us on Pauline's life's journeys? – the journeys through physical landscapes as varied as Kerry and the South Pacific, and the interior journeys where emotion and thought, passion and reflection are translated into such intriguing images.

Autobiography, and in this case visual autobiography, is a very tough personal challenge, and yet here it is done without flattery or pretence, without guile or disguise. The students, staff and visitors who view these pictures will be privileged to experience a visually and intellectually exciting environment and just as the name of the great Nobel laureate Ernest Walton, after whom this building is named, pulls them towards the sciences as adventure, so the name of Pauline Bewick will pull them towards the Arts as adventure. The balance could not be better and there is considerably more too to learn from both these brilliant people, for both Walton and Bewick, though immensely talented human beings, also share a natural modesty and unassuming nature well-evidenced in the considerable investment both made to Irish life.

The Waterford Institute, the city and people of Waterford, and the South-East region, now have this remarkable addition to their cultural heritage and attractions. So many very hardworking people have been involved in mounting this collection and I say a big thank you to all on that very long list. But today the person we gather to thank has to be the artist herself. The Seven Ages, the gift of Pauline's past, will change the future of the Waterford Institute of Technology. She herself will likely never know how much joy her work will bring or how many it will enrich and inspire.

I am sure that the giving of such a vast quantity of work was an enormous personal wrench and a very considerable sacrifice. I hope that such kindness will be well rewarded and well vindicated by the joy with which this Institute has welcomed the gift and the care it will take of the stewardship it has assumed for future generations.

It now gives me great pleasure to declare this exhibition open.

Tá gach súil agam agus gach muinín go mbainfear taitneamh as an dtaispeántas seo go brách agus de shíor. Ár moladh uilig don ealaíontóir agus ár mbuíochas.