Harriet Osborne O'Hagan (1830–1921) was an Irish portrait artist.

Life

Harriet Osborne was born in Dublin in 1830. She initially studied with George Sharp RHA. At least one

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

address can be discerned from her exhibited works, 195 Great Brunswick Street. Having moved to

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, she appears under the name O'Hagan in 1854 living at 193 Stanhope Street, though it is unknown when or where she married. Around 1866, O'Hagan moved to

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. She was in Paris at the same time as

Sarah Purser Sarah Henrietta Purser RHA (22 March 1848 – 7 August 1943) was an Irish artist mainly noted for her work with stained glass. Biography Purser was born in Kingstown (now Dún Laoghaire) in County Dublin, and raised in Dungarvan, County Wate ...

, and was a member of her social circle, however little is known about her personal life or career. Purser produced portrait entitled Mademoiselle Lemercier in 1887, which is likely to be O'Hagan's daughter, Marguerite Lemercier O'Hagan (1859 – c.1930). It has been suggested that this portrait was created during a visit to Ireland. O'Hagan lived out her life in France, and it is known that she lamented being unable to return to Ireland. She died in 1921, in Paris. Her grandson was

Eugène Lemercier Eugène Lemercier (7 November 1886 – 6 April 1915) was a French artist and soldier in World War I. His letters to his mother are a first-hand account of the war, and are preserved in the National Library of Ireland. He is believed to be th ...

, son of her daughter Marguerite, who were both artists in their own right. Lemercier's wartime correspondence is now in the collections of the National Library of Ireland. She was buried in

Montmartre Cemetery The Cemetery of Montmartre (french: link=no, Cimetière de Montmartre) is a cemetery in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, France, that dates to the early 19th century. Officially known as the Cimetière du Nord, it is the third largest necropolis ...

, 6th Division, along the wall, in the center of the division, with her daughter Eugenie-Anna (1863-1972), and her son Maximilian (1856-1881).

Artistic career

The first appearance of O'Hagan exhibiting, under Osborne, was at age nineteen with a lithograph of Mrs Hone after Mr Burton with the

Royal Hibernian Academy The Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) is an artist-based and artist-oriented institution in Ireland, founded in Dublin in 1823. Like many other Irish institutions, such as the RIA, the academy retained the word "Royal" after most of Ireland became in ...

in 1849. In 1851, she submitted four portraits, one in chalk and a watercolour of Richard D'Alton Williams. Encouraged by Sharp to study abroad, O'Hagan lived in

for a time, exhibiting under the name O'Hagan with the

Royal Academy of Arts The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purpo ...

in 1854. Having moved to Paris in 1866, she studied with

Thomas Couture Thomas Couture (21 December 1815 – 30 March 1879) was a French history painter and teacher. He taught such later luminaries of the art world as Édouard Manet, Henri Fantin-Latour, John La Farge,Wilkinson, Burke. ''The Life and Works of A ...

, Léon Cogniet, and Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury. O'Hagan taught classes, with some suggestion that she opened her own academy for women. Between 1866 and 1876, she showed largely portraits at salon exhibitions. One such work was a portrait of her daughter, entitled ''Marguerite s'amuse''. In 1948, M. Garbaye and J. de L'Etre of Savigny-sur-Oise,

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

presented the

National Gallery of Ireland The National Gallery of Ireland ( ga, Gailearaí Náisiúnta na hÉireann) houses the national collection of Irish and European art. It is located in the centre of Dublin with one entrance on Merrion Square, beside Leinster House, and another on ...

(NGI) with two oil paintings and four charcoal drawings by O'Hagan. Three of the drawings are portraits, with one undated drawing believed to be her sister Eugénie, and the other two her daughter Marguerite. The final charcoal drawing is entitled ''Farm in Normandy'' (1880). The oil paintings are ''Maximilian O'Hagan'' and ''An Interior'' respectively. One painting, ''An Interior'', was featured in the NGI's 1984 exhibition, ''The Irish Impressionists, Irish Artists in France and Belgium, 1850-1914''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:OHagan, Harriet Osborne 1830 births 1921 deaths Artists from Dublin (city) Irish women painters 19th-century Irish women artists 19th-century Irish painters 20th-century Irish painters 20th-century Irish women artists 20th-century women painters 19th-century women painters