Charles Lamb |Aras Éanna  | August 2013

There was a big turn out for the opening of an exhibition of paintings by Charles Lamb (1893–1964) in Aras Éanna, the arts centre on Inis Oírr in the Aran Islands. Lamb was from Northern Ireland. He was born in County Armagh and attended evening classes at the Belfast School of Art before he gained a scholarship to the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin where he studied from 1917 to 21. Like so many Irish painters of the time, Lamb was attracted to the West of Ireland where he focused on studies of peasant life in Conomara. He painted on the Aran Islands in 1928 and he settled in An Ceathrú Rua (Carraroe), where he the built a house in the Breton style in the he mid-1930s.

The paintings are part of a private collection that is owned by Laillí Lamb de Buitléar and the exhibition was curated by the contemporary glass artist Róisín de Buitléar. It was hung by Ciarán Ciarán Walsh of www.curator.ie. The exhibition is the highlight of an arts programme (presented by Maighread Ní Ghallchóir and Danny Kirrane in Aras Éanna) that is dedicated to the memory of Laillí’s husband Eamon de Buitléar – the writer, musician and film maker who died in January 2013.