Cuimhniodh (remembered), David Lilburn and Jim Savage

David Lilburn and Jim Savage were widely admired for their commitment to drawing as a primary artistic practice and for their advocacy of its central role in art making, particularly in relation to printmaking. The exhibition will highlight the breadth of their practices as artists, collaborators, publishers and curators, bringing together works produced during their lifetimes across drawing, printmaking and painting.

Lilburn and Savage also worked together through Occasional Press, which they founded to publish art and poetry-related projects of particular interest and value. Their collaborative activity included the Connemara Project with Ballynahinch Castle, where visual artists and poets were invited to respond to the wild Atlantic landscape. Collaborators associated with these projects included Dorothy Cross, Donald Teskey, Tony Curtis, Joe Wilson, Colm Tóibín and Mick O’Dea.

David Lilburn studied at Trinity College Dublin, the Scuole Instituto Statale d’Arte in Urbino, and Limerick School of Art and Design. Working primarily through drawing and printmaking, Lilburn explored ideas of memory, identity and place. He exhibited widely in Ireland and internationally, and his work continues to be recognised for its sensitivity, technical skill and conceptual depth.

Jim Savage studied at Manchester School of Art before continuing his studies at Chelsea College of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art in London. He moved to Ireland in 1982 and became a lecturer at Limerick School of Art and Design, where he taught until his retirement in 2016. Savage is best known for his large-scale, immersive and meticulously detailed drawings of expansive landscape vistas.

Queries to artgallery@limerick.ie