Seamus Heaney’s 70th birthday to be celebrated by special exhibition at IMMA

An exhibition presenting an extensive display of books on which Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney collaborated with a wide cross section of leading artists opens to the public at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on Tuesday 14 April 2009. Artists/Heaney/Books: An Exhibition is being shown to coincide with the celebration of Seamus Heaney’s 70th birthday on 13 April, and is presented in association with the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism and RTÉ. Throughout his career Heaney has developed friendships and collaborated on imagery with a variety of artists, including Barrie Cooke, Felim Egan, Barry Flanagan, T.P. Flanagan, Martin Gale, Cecil King, Sol LeWitt, Hughie O’Donoghue and many others.

The exhibition features a display of the poet’s book collaborations, as well as selected artworks from IMMA’s Collection by the artists in question, with select loans from the Ulster Museum and private collections. Especially for the occasion, Barrie Cooke has made a pair of editioned prints, Guttural Muse, 2009 and In the Boathouse, 2009 for the IMMA Editions series, with excerpts from published and unpublished poems written in the poet’s own hand.

For Further Information: http://www.imma.ie