Patrick Hennessy exhibition at the Irish Museum of Modern Art from March 24 to July 24

An exhibition by Cork-born Patrick Hennessy (1915-1980), one of Ireland’s most successful post-war realist painters, runs at the Irish Museum of Modern Art from March 24 to July 24.

At a time when gay men and women were subject to social and legal prosecution for the simple fact of their sexual orientation Patrick Hennessy and his partner Henry Robertson-Craig chose to exhibit works which clearly marked them as homosexual.

They have almost no peers in Irish art but Hennessy’s late work demonstrates an engagement with the emerging international queer art movement of the 1970’s.