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. Donagh taught at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne where she met Richard Hamilton, whom she later married. She also taught at the University of Reading, the Slade School of Art, and Goldsmiths, University of London.
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 ancestry contributing to the subject of many works depicting the political situation in Northern Ireland. 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 and oil paint 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.
In 1994 she had a solo exhibition at Cornerhouse, Manchester and the preview on 13th October coincided with the Loyalist's in Northern Ireland calling a ceasefire.
Donagh, who was widowed in 2011, lives and works in Oxfordshire.
Her work is in the permanent collection of the Tate Gallery.
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, 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 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 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 1992 - A Centenary Exhibition, University of Reading, and Declarations of War, Kettle's Yard, Cambridge 1993 - Writing on the Wall, Tate 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, Hayward Gallery, London
British Council
Leeds City Art Gallery
Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow
Tate
Ulster Museum - National Museums and Galleries of Northern Ireland
Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester
Victoria and Albert Museum
Hatton Gallery, University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Imperial War Museum
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)