An artist at home in the natural world

Barrie Cooke’s 80th birthday is marked by a retrospective that celebrates his love of women and fishing, reports Carl Dixon

THE Crawford Art Gallery in Cork is playing host to a retrospective of work by Barrie Cooke, one of Ireland’s pre-eminent artists.

The exhibition celebrates the artist’s 80th birthday — it ran at the Irish Museum of Irish Art in Dublin over the summer and runs at the Crawford until January 14. It features a selection of his work from a long career — inspired by the natural world, by women and his love of angling — which began with his first exhibition in Dublin in 1955.