A national treasure

I urge readers to go to the Robert Ballagh Exhibition at the Crawford Art Gallery, Cork.

In my opinion he is one of our greatest and most prolific artists. The exhibition is called Seven, and consists of seven self-portraits and seven portraits of other people, including Dr Noel Browne, James Joyce and the singer/songwriter Eleanor McEvoy. Also, if people have €35 to spare they should buy the book Citizen Artist about Ballagh by Ciaran Carty. It has 148 pages of text and 58 full colour pages of Ballagh’s paintings.

He is a national treasure — he was 70 on Sept 23 and he should be celebrated accordingly.