Louis le Brocquy
Louis le Brocquy (born November 10, 1916) is an Irish painter.Born in Dublin, Ireland, Louis le Brocquy is one of the foremost Irish painters of the twentieth century. Widely acclaimed for his evocative ‘Heads’ of literary figures and fellow artists, which include William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Francis Bacon and Seamus Heaney, in 1956, he represented Ireland at the Venice Biennale, winning the prestigious Premio Acquisto Internationale with A Family, subsequently included in the historic exhibition Fifty Years of Modern Art, Brussels World Fair 1958.
Honoured with museum retrospectives worldwide, his work is represented in numerous public collections, including the Guggenheim Museum, New York and the Tate, London. Exhibitions of his work have been held in museums in the United States, Japan, Australia, France, Spain, Belgium, Slovenia and Mexico. In Ireland, le Brocquy’s contribution to art over the past sixty five years was celebrated in a major retrospective at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in 1996. He is the first and only living artist to be included in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Ireland.
Some of the honors bestowed on him include:
- Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur, (1975)
- Officier de l'Ordre de la Couronne Belge, (2001)
- Member of Aosdána
- Elected Saoi of Aosdána in 1992.
Officier des Arts et des Lettres, France, 1999 Hon. Litt. D., University of Dublin, 1962 Hon. Ll. D., University College, Dublin, 1988 Hon. D. Ph., Dublin City University, 1999 Hon. D. Univ., Queen's University, Belfast 2002.
