The Irish Times

Dublin City Gallery: The Hugh Lane

Dublin City Council has managed to double the size of the old Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Art on Parnell Square for less than half the cost of the National Gallery's Millennium Wing in Clare Street, it was revealed yesterday. The €13 million extension, due to open on May 4th, contains 13 new galleries to complement the existing 13 in Charlemont House, which has been the home of "The Municipal" since 1933. Its name is also being changed to "Dublin City Gallery: The Hugh Lane". The gallery, which has been closed since last October to facilitate the project, is having its permanent collection rehung. It will be augmented by nine Seán Scully paintings, eight of them donated by the artist himself, and six unfinished paintings by Francis Bacon. The Scully collection is being hung in its own spacious gallery, which the Inchicore-born artist - regarded as the most important abstract painter of his generation - had an input in designing as part of the overall project by Dublin architects Gilroy McMahon. "He decided the length, breadth and height of the space virtually to within a millimetre," said Des McMahon, who met Scully in New York, where he is based. Gallery director Barbara Dawson believes it will become one of the major draws of the new gallery.