Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Mainie Jellett and the Modern Movement in Ireland examines one of Ireland's most highly respected 20th-century exponents of Irish art. The book is being published to coincide with an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, which runs from 9th December 1991 to 28th February 1992.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Mainie Jellett (born Mary Hariett Jellett) was an eclectic Irish artist and theoretician well-known in her lifetime (1897-1944) but virtually forgotten today. This dense monograph remedies the oversight, introducing her paintings, writings, and speeches against a background of major events of southern Irish political, religious, and social history. Arnold, a literary editor, art critic, and lifelong friend of the family, proposes Jellett to be simply "the greatest woman painter the country has ever produced (p. 204)." This conclusion will certainly be moderated with more objective criticism. A pupil in London of Orpen and Sickert, Jellett went to study in Paris with Lhote and finally in 1921 with Albert Gleizes whose colleague she became. Her most characteristic works are semi-abstract synthetic cubist compositions, often religious in nature. Yet she also simultaneously produced academic studies and landscapes influenced by Chinese art. Jellet's works, while distinctive as a whole, individually resembled those of Gleizes, Braque, and occasionally even Franz Marc. Most information in the book is unique coming from the artist's archives, interviews, and newspaper accounts making the book a valuable means of tracking the history of modernism in insular Ireland.-M. Hamel-Schwulst, Towson State University