Signed Kate MacDonagh William English Bequest
Kate MacDonagh was born in Sligo but lives and works in Dublin. A prize winner at the Claremorris Open Exhibition in 1979, she studied at the LSA, where she was particularly attracted to print. She studied in Spain and New York where she did an internship for two years at the Bob Blackburn Printmaking Workshop (1981–82), learning about the techniques of colour viscosity which enable the use of several colours on the same printing plate. On her return, she and Pauline Kinehan held an exhibition entitled New York Prints at the Limerick Printmaking Collective (1983), then run by Dietrich Blodau (see page ?), her former teacher in Limerick, and E. J. Peters (see page ?).MacDonagh lived for two years in Clonmel in the early 1980s and participated in Art in Tipperary, Clonmel Art Gallery, 1992 and Tipperary Images, County Museum, Clonmel, 1993. She was included in the first EV+A exhibition in Limerick in 1978 and since then her practice has moved between painting and sculpture, with residencies in Spain in the early 1980s and Slovenia in 2006 and again in 2008. Since 2013 she has spent considerable periods in Japan, invited by the Mokuhanga Innovation Laboratory to take part in programmes to study the ancient art of Japanese wood-block printing. MacDonagh pursues her interest in Japanese wood-block printing while regularly exhibiting at the RHA, at the Royal Ulster Academy, and in solo shows in Nebensonnen, Seidlvilla, Munich and MI-Lab/CFSHE Gallery, Tokyo in 2018; CISHE Gallery 3331 Arts Chryoda, Tokyo, 2015 and 2017, Beauty of Mokuhanga: Discipline & Sensibility, IMC, Hawaii, A Lonely Impulse of Delight, Hamilton Gallery, Sligo & London Art Fair and Geidei University, Tokyo, Japan, 2016/7 and group exhibitions with SO Fine Art Editions, Dublin, 2014 and 2015, and Slikarska Kolonija, Galerija Medija, Zagorje, Slovenia, (2007 -2009).She made Yankees versus Whitesocks at the Blackburn studio in Manhattan. She recalls going to the game with a friend where, having no interest in American baseball, she spent her time sketching. She describes with some amusement the absence of players from the pitch in her print, due to weather conditions such that the fans were offered rain-check tickets to return if play was cancelled. The print embodies the colour viscosity techniques that she acquired in New York and which led to an invitation to her to teach them in her old art school. This print was shown in the exhibition New York Prints, 1983, where it was purchased by William English.
