Rita Donagh (born 30 April 1939) is a British artist, known for her realistic paintings and painstaking draughtsmanship.

Early life and education

Rita Donagh began taking classes in life drawing at Bilston College of Further Education in 1954. She studied fine arts at the

University of Durham Durham University (legally the University of Durham) is a collegiate university, collegiate public university, public research university in Durham, England, Durham, England, founded by an Act of Parliament in 1832 and incorporated by royal charte ...

. Donagh taught at the

University of Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle University (legally the University of Newcastle upon Tyne) is a UK public research university based in Newcastle upon Tyne, North East England. It has overseas campuses in Singapore and Malaysia. The university is a red brick univer ...

where she met Richard Hamilton, whom she later married. She also taught at the

University of Reading The University of Reading is a public university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as University College, Reading, a University of Oxford extension college. The institution received the power to grant its own degrees in 192 ...

, the

Slade School of Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

, and

Goldsmiths, University of London Goldsmiths, University of London, officially the Goldsmiths' College, is a constituent research university of the University of London in England. It was originally founded in 1891 as The Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute by the Wor ...

Career

Her first solo show was at the Nigel Greenwood Gallery in 1972. The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester held a retrospective (which toured) in 1977. In the 1960s and 1970s, her work was largely conceptual with her

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

ancestry contributing to the subject of many works depicting the political situation in

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

. Rita Donagh's work on the H Block prisons in Northern Ireland was shown with her husband Richard Hamilton, at the Institute of Contemporary Art in 1984. Hamilton's influence of

collage Collage (, from the french: coller, "to glue" or "to stick together";) is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. ...

and

oil paint Oil paint is a type of slow-drying paint that consists of particles of pigment suspended in a drying oil, commonly linseed oil. The viscosity of the paint may be modified by the addition of a solvent such as turpentine or white spirit, and varn ...

showed up in her works of the 1970s. Later, she focused on the human figure including such work as Slade of 1994. She continued her interest in politics with works such as ''Downing Street Declaration'' (1993) which included a Hamilton-esque, televised image of Prime Minister

John Major Sir John Major (born 29 March 1943) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997, and as Member of Parliament ...

. Donagh, who was widowed in 2011, lives and works in

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primarily ...

. Her work is in the permanent collection of the

Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

Selected exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

* 1972 - Nigel Greenwood Gallery, London * 1975 - '''Display, The Gallery, London * 1977 - ''Rita Donagh Paintings and Drawings,'' Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, Touring to Central Art Gallery, Wolverhampton; Arts Council of Northern Ireland Gallery, Belfast; Northern Centre for Contemporary Art, Sunderland; Museum of Modern Art, Oxford * 1982 - Nigel Greenwood Gallery, London * 1983 -Orchard Gallery, Derry * 1984 - ICA Gallery, London and Central School of Art and Design, London * 1994 - ''197419841994'',

Cornerhouse, Manchester Cornerhouse was a centre for cinema and the contemporary visual arts, located next to Oxford Road Station on Oxford Street, Manchester, England, which was active from 1985–2015. It had three floors of art galleries, three cinemas, a booksho ...

, Camden Arts Centre, London; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin

Group exhibitions

* 1958 - ''Young Contemporaries'', London * 1959 - ''Young Contemporaries,'' London * 1960 - Bear Lane Gallery, Oxford * 1972 - John Moores Exhibition 8, Liverpool (prize-winner), and ''Drawings,''

Museum of Modern Art, Oxford Modern Art Oxford is an art gallery established in 1965 in Oxford, England. From 1965 to 2002, it was called The Museum of Modern Art, Oxford. The gallery presents exhibitions of modern and contemporary art. It has a national and internationa ...

* 1973 - ''I I English Artists,'' Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden and Kunsthalle, Bremen * 1974 - ''British Painting'', Hayward Gallery, London * 1975 - ''7th International Festival of Painting'', Cagnes sur Mer, France, and ''Contemporary British Drawings'', 13th Biennale, São Paulo, and ''Body and Soul'',

Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool The Walker Art Gallery is an art gallery in Liverpool, which houses one of the largest art collections in England outside London. It is part of the National Museums Liverpool group. History of the Gallery The Walker Art Gallery's collection ...

* 1976 - ''Arte Inglese Oggi,'' Palazzo Reale, Milan * 1978 - ''Hayward Annual '78'', Hayward Gallery, London, and Nigel Greenwood Gallery, London, and ''Art for Society,'' Whitechapel Art Gallery, London * 1979 - ''European Dialogue'', Sydney Biennale * 1980 ''- The Newcastle Connection,'' Newcastle upon Tyne * 1983 - ''The Granada Connection,'' Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester * 1985 - ''Painting and Photography'', St. Martin's School of Art, London, and ''Hayward Annual '85'', Hayward Gallery, London * 1986 - Nigel Greenwood Gallery, London * 1987 - ''Attitudes to Ireland'',

Tate Gallery, London Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

* 1992 - ''A Centenary Exhibition'',

, and ''Declarations of War,'' Kettle's Yard, Cambridge * 1993 - ''Writing on the Wall,''

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

Gallery, London * 1996 - ''Face a l'Histoire'', Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris * 1998 - ''Lines of Desire,'' Oldham Art Gallery and Museum * 2001 - ''Closer Still'', The Winchester Gallery, Winchester * 2002 - ''Display,'' Tate Modern, London

Public collections

Arts Council Collection The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both hi ...

, Hayward Gallery, London * British Council *

Leeds City Art Gallery Leeds Art Gallery in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, is a gallery, part of the Leeds Museums & Galleries group, whose collection of 20th-century British Art was designated by the British government in 1997 as a collection "of national importance ...

Hunterian Art Gallery The Hunterian is a complex of museums located in and operated by the University of Glasgow in Glasgow, Scotland. It is the oldest museum in Scotland. It covers the Hunterian Museum, the Hunterian Art Gallery, the Mackintosh House, the Zoology M ...

, University of Glasgow *

* Ulster Museum - National Museums and Galleries of Northern Ireland * Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester *

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

* Hatton Gallery, University of Newcastle upon Tyne *

Imperial War Museum Imperial War Museums (IWM) is a British national museum organisation with branches at five locations in England, three of which are in London. Founded as the Imperial War Museum in 1917, the museum was intended to record the civil and military ...

The New Art Gallery, Walsall.

References

Bibliography

*''Rita Donagh: Paintings and Drawings'' (exhibition catalog, ed. M. Regan; Manchester, U. Manchester, Whitworth A.G., 1977) *''Rita Donagh 197419841994: Paintings and Drawings'' (exhibition catalog, essay Dr. Sarat Maharaj, Manchester, Cornerhouse, 1994) *''Civil Rights etc.: Rita Donagh and Richard Hamilton'' (exhibition catalog, Dublin, Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, 2011) {{DEFAULTSORT:Donagh, Rita 1939 births Living people British contemporary artists Alumni of Durham University Academics of Goldsmiths, University of London Academics of Newcastle University Academics of the Slade School of Fine Art Academics of the University of Reading British women painters 21st-century British women artists