Edward McGuire (painter)

Edward McGuire (1932–1986) was an Irish painter.

The Irish portraitist, still-life artist and bird painter Edward McGuire was born in Dublin in 1932. He studied painting, drawing and the history of art at the in 1953 and at the Slade School of Fine Art in 1954. In the early 1950s he befriended artists and writers such as Patrick Swift (who encouraged McGuire to paint), Anthony Cronin and Lucian Freud (Slade). He travelled in France and Italy from 1951 to 1953 and lived on the Aran Islands off County Galway from 1955 to 1956. From then until his death in November 1986 he resided in Dublin with wife Sara (Sally) McGuire who died May 2011.

Edward McGuire's paintings were widely exhibited during his lifetime. He had solo shows at the Dawson Gallery, Dublin (A Recent Painting, 1969); Taylor Galleries, Dublin (1983), and a retrospective at the Royal Hibernian Academy Gallagher Gallery (1991). In addition, he exhibited in such group art shows as: Irish Exhibition of Living Art (1953–71); Royal Hibernian Academy (1962–86); Hendriks Gallery, Dublin (1970); Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery of Modern Art (1971); Ulster Museum, Belfast (1973); Oireachtas (1973–80); Cagnes-sur-Mer 6th International Festival of Painting (1974); Concours pour le Prix de Portrait Paul-Louis Weiller, Academie des Beaux Arts, Paris (1979). All this, notwithstanding, McGuire used a laboriously meticulous painting technique which led to the completion of only about six works of art a year. McGuire's keen interest in bird-painting stemmed from the association in his youth with a taxidermist at the Natural History Museum in Dublin. McGuire purchased three stuffed specimens from Mr Williams, starting a bird collection whose members he painted repeatedly in intricate detail throughout his career.

Edward McGuire was a prolific portrait artist and painted over 25 portraits of poets and writers. He first exhibited at the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) in 1962 and became an academician in 1978. His subjects included: Séamus Heaney (1974), Pearse Hutchinson (1970), Anthony Cronin (1977), John Jordan, Seán Ó Faoláin (1978), Ulick O'Connor (1978), James White (1981), John Montague (1983) and Liam Cosgrave (1982).

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