Evie Hone HRHA (1894-1955)MY FOUR GREEN FIELDS, NEW YORK - DESIGN FOR STAINED GLASS WINDOW, c.1937-

Evie Hone HRHA (1894-1955)

MY FOUR GREEN FIELDS, NEW YORK - DESIGN FOR STAINED GLASS WINDOW, c.1937-1938

gouache

Portrait

32.5 by 20.25in., 81.25 by 50.625cm.

possibly exhibited at the WCSI, 1939, My Four Green Fields Sketch Design for Stained Glass Window, no. 76

The stained-glass window, My Four Green Fields, dates from 1939 when it was commissioned by the Department of Industry and Commerce for the Irish Government`s Pavilion at the New York World Trade Fair. It was installed in the CIE Head Office, O`Connell Street in 1960 and later removed to storage by Abbeyglass in Kilmainham at the request of the OPW in 1983. During the renovation of Government Buildings in 1990 the window was taken out of storage, renovated and installed in its present location at the top of the foyer staircase. The carpet on the stairs was custom made by Mary Fitzgerald to complement the colours of Hone`s designs. Examples of designs for My Four Green Fields (lent by Mr & Mrs F.H. Boland, no. 94) as well as the finished window (lent by the Commissioners of the Board of Works (no. 70) were shown at the artist`s retrospective exhibition, `Evie Hone 1894-1955`, Great Hall, University College Dublin, 29 July - 5 September 1958. Another design, Saints and Scholars with St. Colmcille, 1938 was shown at the IELA in 1955 and later lent to the 1958 exhibition by Dr Eileen MacCarvill. In reference to My Four Green Fields, in the exhibition catalogue to the 1958 show, James White, former Director of the National Gallery of Ireland commented:The My Four Green Fields [window] shown in the New York World`s Fair must rank amongst the most important [in the artist`s oeuvre] , but it is notable that a feeling of new assurance centred in the features and disposition of the figures. It was almost as if the curvaceous and rounded line of the Byzantine world were added to the Northern, Gothic style which the artist seemed to possess in common with the medieval craftsmen of Chartres and Poitiers."